I'm not really suprised Apple went cheap, I just can't believe they didn't even give us a making-of featurette. I mean how cheap is that? I noticed the line "own it forever" in the description on the Beatles Store. That might hint to this being more catered to anti-streamers.Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:14 am We're really flying blind with this one. There's just no way of knowing what will happen. On one hand, we've got PJ saying that he extended the tv series to 8 hours because Disney execs told him that no-one buys extended editions any more. Indeed, it has been 20 years since PJ issued his extended cuts of the LOTR trilogy, and physical media sales have plummeted since then. So might they really just not bother? One would assume that Joe Public would have little interest in a bells and whistles version, so we are left with the question "are there sufficient Beatles nerds left in 2022 to make such a release commercially viable?" It costs a lot of money to release physical media, promote it and distribute it. Disney/Apple might not want to chance on something with potentially quite a slim profit margin.
On the other hand, we could assume that this vanilla set is specially for the anti-streamers and to foil the opportunistic pirates. And that they are beavering away on a ten-disc version and keeping sthum about it in case it kills sales of this version. The only trouble is, I feel like I'm kidding myself when i say that. If we've learnt one thing over the years, it's that Apple's decisions are nonsensical and bear no relation to what the fans want. The Christmas flexis box set was a good example: basically something only a tiny subset of a subset wanted, while the rest of us were clamouring for Shea on bluray. So it would be no surprise to me whatsoever if they just said, "Oh that's enough of that, let's move onto a limited vinyl re-pressing of A Collection Of Beatles Oldies".
As usual, I hope I am wrong. But the longer it drags on, the increasingly less likely it is that we'll get anything else, even Let It Be.
Also you're so right about the Beatles Christmas Record haha. Apple basically said "Remastered concerts who?"