Blockbuster and Sonic Solutions team up for Internet movie delivery

Blockbuster and Sonic Solutions issued a joint announcement of a new partnership in which Blockbuster will offer streaming content to PCs, set-top boxes, mobile phones and portable media players, while Sonic will offer the necessary back-end.

"Blockbuster is a ubiquitous entertainment presence in the physical world," Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said in a statement.  "Through this alliance with Sonic, we plan to become a ubiquitous presence in the digital world as well.  Our goal is to offer consumers the most digital content, the most accessibility, via the most devices, both in and out of home."

It looks like Blockbuster will be responsible for offering content while Sonic Systems offers the back-end digital content delivery system that will be used on multiple devices and platforms.  Retail Blockbuster locations will sell some of the products in select stores across the United States.

Blockbuster has faced stiff competition from Netflix, which has expanded its number of partners interested in streaming its content.

It was previously rumored Blockbuster and Microsoft would work together, but the partnership between Blockbuster and Sonic Solutions will have an immediate impact for Blockbuster.

The ability to stream content over the Internet directly into the living room has continued to grow in popularity, research numbers indicate.  Select standalone Blu-ray players — despite struggling sales numbers — have streaming Netflix capability to help convince consumers to utilize both physical Blu-ray discs and streaming high-definition content through Netflix.