pocket-lint.com
>The impending closure of UltraViolet - which will shut its doors on 31 July - is another indication that even offering a free digital copy with every disc has failed to ignite sales.
>You only need to look at prices to also realise that 4K Blu-rays are not selling in significant numbers. New, premium releases still carry a hefty mark-up that is the same or similar to their cost at launch two years ago. Venom, for example, is £25 for the 4K edition, £15 on conventional Blu-ray.
>Yes, it comes with Dolby Vision, but so too does a 4K HDR digital copy of the film that costs £14 on iTunes. Many at that price also come with Dolby Atmos surround sound, aping their physical counterparts.
>A higher volume of sales of the physical version would drive the full RRP down, but that hasn't happened in the last two years and time is a-ticking. The same happened with 3D Blu-ray and look what happened to that.
>To be honest, 4K Blu-ray was going to be a hard sell from the start, with Sony deciding not to include a player with its second edition PlayStation 4 consoles: the standard PS4 and PS4 Pro. It told Pocket-lint at the time that its users prefer digital 4K streaming, but things might have turned out differently had it actually supported the format. After all, the PlayStation 2 almost single-handedly helped the DVD market to thrive.
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