Redbox Now Offers Nationwide Game Rentals

[Optimystic]

I feel that the major problem herein is that a movie can be watched in a night, and I hope the same never applies to videogames.

1) Even if it takes you 20 days to finish a brand new game, you'll still save money over buying it from Best Buy/Gamestop.

2) If you plan on playing for longer than that... why are you renting it?

I don't understand how this works... how are you renting it? Is it based on some kind of honor code or does it only accept credit cards and not cash? Does the movie/game stop working after the allotted amount of time?

They imprint your credit card when you swipe it, and until you return the movie/game they keep charging it (the rates were given in the article.) After some period of time (30 days?) the movie/game is yours to keep and they stop charging you, at which point you'd have paid the retail price of the thing anyway (or close to it.)

And yes, credit cards only.

 

[Rad Party God]

Well, Blockbuster is still quite strong in my country and we also can't still use Netflix yet, due to obvious bandwith limitations.

Honestly, I still have a soft spot in my heart for brick and mortar rental places, but still, I'm looking forward to the day that Redbox makes it's strides within my country.

 

[Mister Linton]

Since when has redbox got the permission to burn DVDs on the spot and how do you expect them to do so for XBOX/PS3 games and Blu-rays? Also the packaging of the disks afterwards would be a nightmare and likely to jam... so with no source and nothing I can find... are we making stuff up here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScuFo1x751M&

It's just a fancy vending machine.

Yeah, this article is full of patently false info, probably taken from a wiki. Not surprising on the interwebs.

 

[AbstractStream]

This is kinda awesome. I have a red box like 2 blocks away and blockbuster that is about...well much much further away. A couple of miles. Point is, this news has made my life (and commute) much easier.

 

[Skratt]

So, how exactly does RedBox circumvent activation based DRM? I mean I see the "writes to disc on the spot", so does that mean you don't have to return it?

On the uptick, $2 game demos where one isn't normally available, win!

 

[KedynCrow]

Seems like a sub-par bid to win people away from Gamefly.

More power to them. But it'll be a bit of an uphill battle. I haven't got the time to plow through a game in a night.

 

[gCrusher]

Driving yet another stake into the dark heart of Blockbuster Video

what did blockbuster ever do to you? they've always seemed like a perfectly fine service to me.

Weirdest thing. Moved out of the town I got a Blockbuster account with to pretty much across the state. Got a letter forwarded from the old address nearly 4 months after moving away, saying I recently rented Lady In The Water and The Wicker Man, and they were a week late.

I contacted four different people at the store by phone, and they were all certain that I came in and did the rental, because they would never accept a rental card with someone else's name and they would never make a data entry error (wish I could be exaggerating the level of arrogance they had). Oh, and how did I intend to pay for the late movies because they hadn't come back yet?

Got with a manager at the local branch in town, who said he had been a regional manager upstate for years before switching to his own store. He called on my behalf, got the exact same response, apologized that he couldn't do more if that's the way they were going to be. Best he could do was get my number locked for future use from that store, which he did. I ignored the whole thing for awhile, but then a month went by and I got another forwarded letter, thanking me for returning the two late movies.

And I don't even like that genre anyway.

Nothing wrong with Blockbuster, but humans make mistakes. All hail our new machine masters. Or something. >:3

 

[rickthetrick]

Do they still make those RC cola stickers, because I'm sure that would be funny as hell to see.

No idea, but I was in one of Portland's more esoterically popular (read: hipster) bars the other day and the bartender rejected my rum and Coke order, saying they only served RC Cola. So the stuff must still exist.

(PS: A rum and RC Cola is kinda terrible.)

Anything with RC cola in it is terrible. Now a rum and DP? That's where it's at.

OT: I was not aware that Redbox kiosks wrote to disk. Is that a relatively new thing, Or is it just for games? Back when I used redbox, you had to go with what they had on stock at that time. I'm in the Netflix camp now, but the idea of games intrigues me.

 

[Saelune]

Wait, if it makes the discs there, how will they work on your system? Isnt it set up so that the 360 (and maybe the PS3) wont play copies, or atleast if you get caught, your system gets blacklisted?

 

[klausaidon]

Blockbusters actually is still kicking. They started to do the same thing, and have their own blue versions set up in some locations. Though, they certainly lost a lot of ground.

 

[whtkid6969]

Nice, If it wasn't 3:23 when i read this, i'd be heading out to the 3 near Jewel

 

[MikailCaboose]

sweet 2 bucks to play all the bad games i dont wanna pay 60 bucks for
freaking epic

Or you could just go Game Fly, which is essentially Netflix for games.

And how long does anybody think Blockbuster will be around for? A year? Less?

 

[dghjdgdjf]

It's a shame they don't have this in Sweden. Renting Street Fighter or something similar for one day just to play with some bros sounds awesome.