Unfortuntely you are basing your knowledge and info on the North American market which has little relevance on a world wide level.
You are correct that in NA digital has done very well indeed with services like Netflix killing off rental stores and decreasing the amount of physical discs sold but thats not the case in the UK and Europe or many parts of Asia for that matter. Here the disc is still king when it comes to films and television. Our on demand serives are very poor compared to NA and aren't going to be improving anytime soon which has resulted in far less subscribers than over the pond. Couple that with the fact that here illegal downloads account for 90% of the content downloads and the studios have a major problem. So much so that several corporations are putting heavy pressure on our Government to increase censorship of the internet and now many sites are being blocked by service providers in a bid to stem piracy. DVD and Blu ray sales here far outstrip actual legal downloads for visual content anyway, music is another discussion. Because of those factors I know 2 studios first hand that are delighted with the small success that steelbooks have provided. It has grown into a true collectable like picture discs and other media that attract a collectors market and that does give the consumer and retailer some power which they aren't using to it's full advantage. Blu ray has sold well in Europe but there is still some confusion for quite a large amount of the public who are still using CRT Tube TV as to the benefits and they account for around 25% of TV's still in use in Europe which has been a major factor in why blu ray doesn't sell as well as it should. The fact this has seen the rise of a new collectable has put money in the studios pocket "granted not huge amounts" but it is keeping the physical format alive, and it's continuing to grow here where steelbooks seem to be the most popular. Retailers are actively marketing them in movie magazines and other media outlets and we are seeing a flood or new and older releases that are well made and 50% of the time with some actual thought put into them resulting in great products which when taken on by the Asian retailers with added extra's make some seriously pricely second hand market collectables, and that there is North America's problem.
While here with physical being king some thought and quality is still expected by the studios and for the most part it's provided although with the popularity growing we have seen floods of poorer efforts which always happens when something takes off with any success and the corporations try and capitalise on them. NA has struggled because of this, with many of your retailers being for the domestic market they have tried to produce products to aid those collectors over there but because physical formats are dying there it definitely has resulted recently in far poorer quality products. European and Asian companies for the most part with exceptions here and there think international sales, NA companies don't. They have a closed market that if it wasn't for the kindness of people like
@Drum18 and others we would never see any of these releases at affordable prices, and because of this they seem to think they can get away with cheaper products. Now not everything made is bad, as you point out the upcoming Mondo's are superb and recent releases like the second Hobbit film has a lovely finish and great art compared to many other countries but far to many are failing, Captain America 2 was just a disaster with terrible finish, washed out art and the actual quality of the steel itself was very inferior to the European version. Godzilla was the same, same art as Europe but the actual steel quality and finish was terrible. I'm not blaming you so don't take it personally if I want to moan lol, I'm blaming the people at the heads of those retailer companies for accepting such products period. It seems a case of well we know they are doing well elsewhere at the moment and we seem to have collectors here so lets pump some out on the cheap. You only have to look at some of the waves released in Canada of older titles that were pretty bad and cheaply thrown together compared to the older releases Zavvi often manages to secure. We've seen some of those waves hit Europe eventually and except for the odd one or two they are pretty poor. If it wasn't for your hard work and others who actually collect them themselves I'm sure the quality would fall further in a market where digital is more popular. So yes I will moan and continue to moan as is my right but I do understand all to well how the system works, and it won't change for NA releases anytime soon. You will contunue to get some amazing releases but your going to see lots of very cheaply made ones too purely because the Corporate heads are you are very correct tightening their belts but still want to please a small group of collectors and because they don't think on an international level means they don't need to bother too much about the quality we demand here or in Asia.
All that said. This looks like it's gonna be one of the good ones [emoji41]
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