After a tough first quarter financially, DVD rental giant Netflix has announced that it will be raising monthly membership fees for those renting Blu-Ray discs. Currently there is no extra charge for renting Blu-Ray as opposed to the standard definition DVDs. The move is not entirely unexpected as the increase in Blu-Ray players in households coupled with the higher cost of the high-definition discs has risen overhead costs for company. Netflix made the decision to stock Blu-Ray titles instead of the HD-DVD format back in February.

It is unclear at this time how this price increase will be implemented and whether current subscribers will need to "opt-in" to a Blu-Ray plan. The other option would be to add a small surcharge to every rental that is high-definition. The major gripe we’d have with a higher priced monthly plan to access the Blu-Ray library is that the inventory of high-definition discs is small and only accounts for releases made in the past couple years. On the other hand, this modest price increase for Blu-Ray renters may save other subscribers from having to pick up the tab for the higher overhead.

The next move will have to come from Blockbuster. Will they use this as an opening to trump Netflix in the high-definition arena? Or simply follow their lead and increase prices for Blu-Ray subscribers themselves?

Source: G4