Mercenary cited consumer demand and the high costs of printing box covers for the video cassettes as reasons for abandoning the VHS format.
“Adult consumers are no longer interested in watching their titles on tape, and it's no longer profitable for us to continue duplication of our productions on VHS,” Mercenary owner Lexington Steele said.
“Mercenary welcomes this shift, because our titles are best represented on the DVD format,” he added. “Our consumers can watch our titles in crystal-clear picture quality, with extras shot exclusively for that title, and their hundredth experience watching a Mercenary title will be the same as the first.”
While there are no concrete numbers concerning how many other adult companies also have abandoned VHS, the industry is quietly but clearly moving away from the format.
Allen Gold of Cherry Boxxx said his company stopped making VHS releases in the spring of 2005, and added that most companies continuing to sell VHS titles are only getting about $1 per unit from distributors.
VHS tapes are often sold as “grab-bag” items, where distributors buy 50 different titles per box at $1-$2 dollars per unit. The retailers then kick the price up to $3-$5 dollars per unit, although they are still getting much higher over-the-counter prices in some areas of the country.
“It’s just that DVD machines are so cheap now,” Gold says. “You can get a DVD player today for less than 50 bucks. I don’t even think they’re making VCR-only machines anymore. If they are, I don’t understand why anyone would buy them.”
