Blockbuster Video

Blockbuster Video, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is the name of the biggest chain of video tape, video game and DVD rental shops in North America, with shops in countries such Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and Taiwan.

Blockbuster's first store opened on October 19, 1985, and was grown into a multi-billion dollar company by Wayne Huizenga, until it was sold to Viacom in 1994.

In 2003, Viacom said that it has 4,971 U.S. locations and 2,405 international locations, with more than 43 million U.S. households with Blockbuster memberships.

As of 2004, Blockbuster decided to withdraw from Hong Kong, where it cannot compete with the VCD shops, both local ones and those across the border within Shenzhen. On May 19, Blockbuster acquired Rhino Video Games, in an effort to compete with Gamestop.

In the middle of 2004, Blockbuster introduced their DVD rental service by mail to compete with other online DVD rental providers such as Netflix.

Also in the middle of 2004, Blockbuster rolled out Blockbuster 3.0. Customers are now given the option to choose their own rental terms on most movies (they can elect to keep them for a day at a lower price, or keep them for a week at regular price); the Blockbuster Game Pass and Movie Pass allow customers to exchange-and-return their games and movies as much as they desire for a low monthly charge; and in-store DVD and game trading allows customers to get store credit for titles that they own.

Also, Blockbuster rolled out in-store Game Rush locations that provide a wide variety of games and systems, from the Nintendo Entertainment System all the way up to the modern PlayStation 2, XBox and GameCube systems. Game Rush locations tend to offer special deals on game trading that seem to be focused on improving their inventory of used games rather than trying to actually cut a profit.

See also: Blockbuster (general meaning of the word)