As the recent post on Armchairempire.com reminds us, it seems the tests that started back in 2009, were very successful, and Redbox will be bringing game rentals for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii starting in June. The pricing will be $2 a day, and should be the same as the movie business as far as returns go. According to President Mitch Lowe, he stated “Redbox has rented more than 1 million video games in less than two years at these locations, underscoring the popularity of video game play in America,”. Now this will put them in the market along with GameFly, who does mail rental for video games, much like Netflix does for movies. It seems kind of weird, since you can rent from Gamefly for $16 a month (one-at-a-time) for as many games as you can play in a month. But with the initial tests that Redbox did, it seems people either don’t know the Gamefly name very well, or just don’t care. I guess though, it’s just another venue for games to get out.
There was an interview by IndustryGames that co-founder of Gamefly Sean Spector said that they really aren’t worried about the competition and said “Look at Netflix and Redbox for movies.” So he seems to think they can co-exist just fine. We shall see. I’m just waiting for Spot to try and capsize Redbox with their 89 cent combo and $1 across the board for movies.
via [CNET]
