Redbox has testing the idea of video game rentals for several months and concluded that it’s a go. Soon almost all the Redbox kiosks will include popular video games for rental.
The price for a video game will be $2 per day. There should be between 22 and 28 video game titles to choose from in a kiosk, still leaving space for about 200 movies, according to Redbox presses play on video games rentals across its kiosks.
Image Credit: Valeria Everett
Gamasutra reports that games will be available for console devices such as Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but not for handheld devices.
While the company did experiment with handheld games during earlier market tests, it opted to ignore systems like the Nintendo DS and 3DS when it expanded the program.
New releases of games will be available with a week of launch. If you’re a Redbox user, you know you can walk up to a kiosk and grab whatever looks good, but you can also go online to check availability of titles and reserve titles. That will apply to video games as well.
Renting vs. Buying
I just bought a video game for a family member and it cost me $54. It would take 27 days of rentals to reach that price. Renting looks pretty good.
I see two issues in the renting vs. buying question. If you rent a game for just a day or two, you can decide whether to take the high dollar plunge and buy a copy. Buying a copy of the game makes sense when you know it will engage the gamers in the house for an extended period before they reach mastery level and have squeezed every moment of fun out of the game.
Is this great news for your household? Will you be taking advantage of the chance to rent a video game for $2 a day?
I really don’t think I would rent a game for $2 a day. if you keep it for more than 4 days, it’s cheaper to use gamefly. $8 a month or $2 a day… Tough decision!
Jen, I had to look up Gamefly to see what it is. Just like Netflix mail delivery, except it’s games. Thanks for the tip.