redbox for videogames....why not?

[swlovinist]

I was thinking about how successful redbox has been for movie rentals and wondered....why not for video games? Not specifically thinking about redbox, just curious why some bigger company has not jumped on this. These "box" rental venues do not have to have a ton of selections....heck they could just offer some more popular Wii and Xbox 360 and PS2 games and I think it would do very very well. With the economy in the tanker, I could see this being very successful. Thoughts?

[Kid Ice]

Since the average videogame is 3 to 5 times more valuable than the average DVD, there are probably more fraud concerns. But IMO it's feasible and I might even try it.

[Oobgarm]

I thought a form of this was already being tested in some markets? I swear I read about it somewhere recently.

If anything, a Google search yielded a scan of this flyer:

[slip81]

but redbox has a dollar a day pricing structure, which probably wouldn't work for games since most people are gonna wanna keep them for more than 24 hours. and if they charge 5-6 bucks for a weeks rental, it really isn't that much better than blockbuster.

[rsiddall]

http://www.onlive.com/service.html

[Chainclaw]

http://www.onlive.com/service.html

Shirley you can't be serious. You do know that's just an elaborate joke, right?

[otoko]

Shirley you can't be serious. You do know that's just an elaborate joke, right?

rsiddall's name is Shirley? Hmmm...

Anyway, I don't see this working well around where I live. I could just see the game getting stolen way too easy. I know plenty of people that would be willing to thief games from such a machine should it arise. Then again, how does the current red box work?

It might just be me and lack of know how they work, but I can see people just returning blank media in the disk cases instead of the actual disks.

[MrSparkle]

The closest i can think of are through the mail game rental services like gamefly. As previously mentioned video games typically retail new for $50 usd whereas dvd's retail new at between 15-20 usd. Other considerations are that kids would be a large audience of game rentals and kids are pretty bad at taking care of things. For this to be profitable the discs would have to last 50 rental days plus additional rental days to pay for store space, electricity, machine maintanence, and payroll for employees to do things like stocking and updating products. So you have the same potential for day to day profit generation but higher expenses to deal with.

[rsiddall]

Shirley you can't be serious. You do know that's just an elaborate joke, right?

Real or not, it didn't stop me from signing up to be a potential beta tester...

Eurogamer may have passed OnLive off as not possible, just like those who insisted Roku, Netflix, Vudu, etc. (companies offering streaming video content) was not possible.

[Icarus Moonsight]

rsiddall's name is Shirley? Hmmm...

R'Siddall is the Klingon form of Shirley, I believe.

Just streaming video (even HD and 5/7.1 audio) is a whole different deal altogether. Onlive has much more going on than that, AFAIK. It runs it's wares on central servers with chuncks of game code being passed back and forth between server and user, plus the upkeep of all them pesky control inputs from the user not to mention the streaming video and audio on top of all that.

With all that going on I'd be impressed if they can get a flawless game of Dragon's Lair going... In truth, I want to be proven wrong. I just haven't seen anything yet. Remember the Phantom and pay heed.

[MrSparkle]

Uh oh this thread is breaking down into a discussion of klingon translations.

I've heard a little bit about this streaming game service but it sounds like a pretty complex way to save users from requiring gaming class hardware to game on. I can't imagine it really working all that well due to latency issues. Even with modern broadband connections alot of people experience periodic lag. Add into that the idea that the gamecode it self will be subject to that lag and it sounds like a recipe for a dud of a gaming idea.

What about the idea of online game rentals, stream the game to the system and have it deactivate after the rental period. It has a few pitfalls such as the time it would take to download a modern game, the harddrive space requirements and the fact that it would most likely be broken leading to some creative yet convenient form of piracy. Other than these problems seems like a viable alternative because you don't have to incur the costs of replacing the broken down media. has all the advantages of other downloadable content such as wiishop, x-box live, and PSN. No need to fight over retail shelf space, lower cost of production which will mean higher profit margins, customer convenience.

Or another idea for a red box type of idea. Given that when you purchase a game your actually purchasing the content contained on the disc and not the disc itself allow the company to purchase licenses for the content and produce their own discs. the developer/publisher still get the profit for the content and it establishes a viable business model as the rental company doesn't have to worry about little billy scratching the disc to the point of uselessness. It would fit under the fair use clause of copyright law i believe.

[unwinddesign]

rsiddall's name is Shirley? Hmmm...

Anyway, I don't see this working well around where I live. I could just see the game getting stolen way too easy. I know plenty of people that would be willing to thief games from such a machine should it arise. Then again, how does the current red box work?

It might just be me and lack of know how they work, but I can see people just returning blank media in the disk cases instead of the actual disks.

They put stuff on the discs that the machine scans, so that's not really an option. They have your card # too.

[tubeway]

They put stuff on the discs that the machine scans, so that's not really an option. They have your card # too.

Combination of a prepaid credit card, and a label maker to replicate whatever info that the machine scans. No, I'm not actually suggesting people go and do this.