Walmart's Chromecast Knockoff: Vudu-Only

For some bizarre reasoning, known only to the upper echelon of WalMart hierarchy, Walmart has introduced the new Vudu Spark, a dongle that will only work with Vudu and Vudu only. If you are a Vudu user and really love the service, the price is a real deal at $25. If you like streaming services other than Vudu, you are seriously out of luck. Walmart is acting like they own Vudu or something.....oh, wait...they do.

In the meantime, if you see some poor soul contemplating one at your local Walmart, feel free to sidle up and quietly whisper Chromecast in their ear.

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If Walmart was smart they would be giving them away for free, just to get more people using Vudu. An ongoing monthly subscription is worth a lot more than a one-time purchase.

Or at least include a free month of service in the price of the dongle or something.

Strange, Walmart's cheap clones are normally less than half the price of the real thing. Shouldn't this be $15 or less?

I've had access to Vudu for a few years. I've not watched a movie on it yet.
I have paid for a few rentals on Amazon.
I agree with sir-gold - they should give these away. Another idea - whatever the purchase price, give me the equivalent in rental credits. That way it'd be a wash for the consumer and might get them to buy additional rentals down the road.
There are so many entertainment choices for consumers. It's a tough market.

I tried buying a Logitech G502 today for the 3rd time in electronics I work there too don't forget.
I couldn't find anyone to help me the whole store was vacant at three different times.
So I guess Amazon is my next in line think I'll try saving Bing rewards.

Just want to quit and get out of that miserable people place.

sir-gold said:

If Walmart was smart they would be giving them away for free, just to get more people using Vudu. An ongoing monthly subscription is worth a lot more than a one-time purchase.

Or at least include a free month of service in the price of the dongle or something.

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This shows that you don't know what Vudu is. There is no subscription. Vudu isn't a steaming service like Netflix, it is an digital video rental and purchasing service. It is also one of the few sites that you can redeem Ultra Violet codes to get digital copies of movies that you have purchased on disc.

At best they could give you a free rental or something, which they do from time to time on movies. Think it was Game of Thrones Season 3 that gave you something like $10 toward Vudu purchases if you bought it at Walmart. They recently started some service that if you buy a movie in store that comes with a digital copy, they will automatically put the digital copy into your Vudu account without you having to redeem the code. Not sure how that works, but my guess that was to push their service. Buy giving a free rental or even a free movie purchase, or something like that with the dongle that would only help them more. As then none users of the service would be a little more interesting in trying it out. At that point they would get their 6 free movies (from a list of about 40 - 50 older movies) and then get another bonus free item.

This isn't something that we are going to rush out and get as Roku already does vudu, game consoles does it, various set top or Blu-ray players support it, Chromecast supports it.... That would be like Netflix releasing a Netflix only box. I can understand that they want you to buy from their service instead of steaming from all other subscription services, but the days of a single box doing a single thing is very outdated now.

Comixbooks said:

I tried buying a Logitech G502 today for the 3rd time in electronics I work there too don't forget.
I couldn't find anyone to help me the whole store was vacant at three different times.
So I guess Amazon is my next in line think I'll try saving Bing rewards.

Just want to quit and get out of that miserable people place.

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You work at Walmart and at 3 different times you found the entire store void of a single worker. Why didn't you just go in the back then and find somebody as you would know then where they are all off screwing around.

punched out can't shop on the clock going in the back and asking for help is like going through a hazing gauntlet.

Only VUDU = DOODOO

I saw this and noticed it only had Vudu and thought, "that's stupid".

Why is the quality of all of these streaming services shit compared to Netflix. I recently downloaded the Disney movies app and everything looked atrocious.

I have had zero issues with quality from vudu

Thanks for the hot deal, OP. I've bought 5 for family members

Comixbooks said:

I tried buying a Logitech G502 today for the 3rd time in electronics I work there too don't forget.
I couldn't find anyone to help me the whole store was vacant at three different times.
So I guess Amazon is my next in line think I'll try saving Bing rewards.

Just want to quit and get out of that miserable people place.

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Do walmart employees even specialize by department? Every time I've ever been there it seems like the entire store is just stocked with janitors. They aimlessly walk about the store tidying up things, picking up shirts off the floor, straightening items on the shelves (and even that is like a big maybe) but nobody there actually has a particular job/department role. Any time I have ever asked anyone something simple like "where are the TV's" I just get a deer in the headlights look. I dont even bother speaking to anyone anymore, if I cant find it I just leave.

Saw one of these tonight in the store. It does come with $25 worth of vudu credits. So it does work out to not really cost you anything.

McFry said:

Do walmart employees even specialize by department? Every time I've ever been there it seems like the entire store is just stocked with janitors. They aimlessly walk about the store tidying up things, picking up shirts off the floor, straightening items on the shelves (and even that is like a big maybe) but nobody there actually has a particular job/department role. Any time I have ever asked anyone something simple like "where are the TV's" I just get a deer in the headlights look. I dont even bother speaking to anyone anymore, if I cant find it I just leave.

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Haha who asks "where are the tvs". Damn son you've never been to a b and m before. The tvs are always in the back so fucken thieves don't try to grab them on their way out the door.