Entering an increasingly crowded field, Wal-Mart Tuesday began selling downloads of movies and TV shows. At launch, the retail giant is offering more than 3,000 titles from all the major film studios;
the company also will sell TV show episodes from Fox, but not ABC, CBS or NBC. In the last six months, a host of companies have launched online movie stores, but with titles from a hodgepodge of
studios. Apple Computer's iTunes for instance, sells TV shows from all of the major networks, but only two studios: Disney and Paramount. Other recent companies to unveil digital movie downloads
include
AOL,
Amazon and
Microsoft (via its Xbox 360 console). Wal-Mart will charge $1.96 for TV show downloads, compared to
iTunes' $1.99 and between $9.88 and $19.88 per movie. Other online movie stores charge a range of prices between $8 and $20 a movie.
