So earlier tonight I was a little bored and got the sudden urge to watch some Star Wars films. Not a too unreasonable urge given my geek nature. I was even willing to part with actual real life money to see at least one in HD probably 2 and I’d probibly watch a third tomorrow. So as it’s 2011, I have a 50Mb internet connection, I have a Xbox 360, PS3 and HD Sky Box surely somewhere some how some combination of these couple of years old technologies would deliver some of the most popular movies of all time in to my home.

No. No Star Wars on Zune, No Star Wars on Lovefilm streaming, No Star Wars on iTunes (except clone wars, which is awesome, but my Sky Box has a few episodes on it), not even a desperate search to see if it’s being shown on ITV4 or something bought anything up. How is this possible in 2011?

As we all know Mr. Lucas hasn’t made anything of note since The Last Crusade in ’89 and has spent the last 20 years trying his hardest to bleed as much money out of Star Wars as possible. Which is understandable really, because his cut of the $2 billion original trilogy box office couldn’t of lasted him long, good job he got all that money from the toy and extras because it was quite a while before he made the prequels, which made a pityful $2.5 billion at the box office. Never mind the video releases, eventual DVD release, cinematic re-releases. So you’d imagine being so poor he’d be desperate to take my money for an internet HD version? Obviously not.

This is a prime example of the movie industry making the same mistakes the music industry have been making for years. Sticking to old world measures to restrict customer choice rather than letting the customer choose how they’d like to consume your content with a wide range of options as some people want different things. Again lets look at Star Wars to see the real world example. Let’s take the HD original trilogy (the films I’d like to watch) they were first shown on Sky HD on Jan 1 2007 (more than 4 years ago), in 2010 they got shown on ITV4 HD, the blu-ray release is scheduled for release in September 2011. So it’s going to be nearly 5 years from the first showings to the first chance to actually own it.

And then they are shocked and outraged when people pirate films? In any business if you treat your customers that badly, you shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t want to do business with you.

Luckily, we’re coming to a crunch point. Netflix in the US has set out the blue-print for the future, a monthly fee for access to a huge streaming database of movies. Spotify is doing the same for music and the tech giants are taking notice. Amazon bought Lovefilm (regularly called the Netflix of the UK, I wouldn’t go that far), Google are looking to move their youtube brand in to the movie market and Microsoft’s Zune service is available but they are doing a great job of not telling anyone about it (Example: my brother got a new HDTV the other day, not yet having any HD content to play on it I said why don’t you just watch a few trailers on the Zune Marketplace as they’re HD and on his 40Mb internet will be blu-ray quality. He said ‘what?’ he plays on his Xbox for hours almost every night and didn’t know about it).

And then of course there’s Apple. iTunes accounts for 70% of music sales, but total sales have stalled. They have the largest number of people with an internet account linked to a credit card, for one click purchasing. 200 Million people according to Steve Jobs on Wednesday. They have a huge data-centre ready to light up. Maybe 2011 is the year AppleTV stops being a hobby?

So things are looking good for the future. But the future is now, Damn it! Every day that consumer choice is stifled piracy will increase, these services have been technically achievable for years and not being able to watch Star Wars in HD tonight has really pissed me off.

I’m off to have a bath and then watch an episode of Clone Wars. I think I’m going to need a rest before I digest the news about The Phantom Menace being converted to 3D and re-released in Feb 2012.

Ashley.