Report: Redbox in talks to start game rental service
Late night stoner trips to 7-11 may be getting much more totally awesome, with a cheap video game rental along with your blunt wrap, bear claw and Super Double Gulp in the possible near future.
Popular DVD rental kiosk service Redbox, which is becoming a fairly common sight in many American town and cities, is looking to expand the offerings on its rental machines to games. A report from Reuters indicates that the company, conceived by McDonald’s to help drive foot traffic to restaurants, is in talks with game manufacturers to offer games in all the company’s kiosks.
Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox, and NBC Universal recently sought to block the $1-a-day service’s access to new releases, fearing the low-cost rental rates undervalued their DVD sales- Redbox sued, citing antitrust laws. But Redbox president Mitch Lowe said that talks with game developers were occuring “early and often” to avoid the same problems with video game rentals. Rentals for games are also projected to be $2 a night, rather than $1.
CEO of video game maker THQ Inc Brian Farrell took a swipe at music and film industry technophobic policies when commenting on the planned service:
“If you look at movies and music in some ways, resisting new business models has not been a great formula for success, so one of the things I like about our industry is we tend to think, ‘We have to adapt to this change.’ So it’s part of our DNA.”
[Image: Flickr]
