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Rumour: Microsoft testing gaming rentals on the xbox store?

Makes sense since all these smart people can't seem to figure out a way to make digital of any value like physical games once you're done with them.
 
Price would have to be right for me to justify it over doing Game Pass' entire library for $10/mo but if it were... I'd totally be down.
 
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shpankey

not an idiot
Interesting idea... definitely need the price to be really low to work, but it could be a good thing.
 

Blam

Member
rentals are fine if you're only going to pay so much but you should be able to get a tiered discount so if you have 1 month in its a certain amount, and so forth.
 
rentals are fine if you're only going to pay so much but you should be able to get a tiered discount so if you have 1 month in its a certain amount, and so forth.

I doubt any third party is going to offer new games on Game Pass or rentals. Not when gamers can easily beat a game over a weekend. If a movie costs $20 to buy and they can rent it for $5 then one would expect game rentals to be much higher. How popular would a $14.99 game rental be for 24 hours?
 

oldergamer

Member
This is actually a good idea. Are we sure this is rentals and not a sort smaller payment plan? Like buy now for full price or pay 21 dollars every 3 months where you own it after 9 months?
 
Damn awesome I hope it's true.

Xbox is beating Sony when it comes to services and consumer friendly options to buy and play games. They basically better than Sony in every department except Exclusives. If they can fix exclusives problems then Xbox will become the best place to play games.

Sony first party strength gives them shield against any kind of criticism that people have in services and hardware department.
 
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hybrid_birth

Gold Member
I doubt any third party is going to offer new games on Game Pass or rentals. Not when gamers can easily beat a game over a weekend. If a movie costs $20 to buy and they can rent it for $5 then one would expect game rentals to be much higher. How popular would a $14.99 game rental be for 24 hours?

Umm there is a rental company called redbox. They have movie rentals for $1 and video game rentals for $3 a day. Brand new games are at redbox. I rented wolfenstein 2 when it came out.

There are thousands and thousands of redbox kiosks around the United States.
 
Umm there is a rental company called redbox. They have movie rentals for $1 and video game rentals for $3 a day. Brand new games are at redbox. I rented wolfenstein 2 when it came out.

There are thousands and thousands of redbox kiosks around the United States.

Blockbuster used to offer game rentals too, I am talking about online rentals and when it comes to instant access for everyone who can rent the same copy millions at once the prices change. Try renting a movie on Google/iTunes/Amazon or your cable subscriber, it's not $1 for a new movie.
 
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21$ for a 3 month rent of a game?... Microsoft must be out of their mind with those prices.

On Playstation Now Sony was charging $3 for 4 hours of play on last generation titles. How many third party publishers are going to sacrifice the $60 normal price for a game rental where most people can beat a game over a few days?
 

Alx

Member
21$ for a 3 month rent of a game?... Microsoft must be out of their mind with those prices.

Judging by the "$3 a day" that existing companies seem to ask for, it sounds like a decent deal.
More importantly one should compare it to what people get from second hand market : assuming someone buys a physical game at full price, finishes it in less than three months and sell it again, does he lose more or less than $20 in the process ?
 
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fermcr

Member
On Playstation Now Sony was charging $3 for 4 hours of play on last generation titles. How many third party publishers are going to sacrifice the $60 normal price for a game rental where most people can beat a game over a few days?

Xbox Game Pass would be a much better deal then 21$ for a 3 month rent of a game. Even purchasing a second hand game for a bit more then 21$ would be a better deal then renting it at that price.
Absurd price!
 

Alx

Member
Game pass would be $30 for three months. It's a better deal if you're interested in other games in the pass, but if you're not then $20 is better. In the end it's just another option, so nice to have.
 
Xbox Game Pass would be a much better deal then 21$ for a 3 month rent of a game. Even purchasing a second hand game for a bit more then 21$ would be a better deal then renting it at that price.
Absurd price!

That's why when you look at it Game Pass is incredibly good value for the price they are asking but from a third party publishers point of view there is no way they want to sacrifice that $60 purchase unless we start getting into games as a service. This is why I imagine if they did game rentals would be high for new games.
 

DavidGzz

Member
Another nail in the coffin for Gamestop. I know many gamers who buy games from them and then trade them in for new games, this will be a more convenient process.
 
On Playstation Now Sony was charging $3 for 4 hours of play on last generation titles. How many third party publishers are going to sacrifice the $60 normal price for a game rental where most people can beat a game over a few days?
At least they're getting something as opposed to used game sales and RedBox
 

Horns

Member
I'm all for it. They should consider applying the rental cost towards the price of the game if someone decides to buy it.
 

WaterAstro

Member
I doubt third party is going to want this. Either they're not in it or they will rent out their games like a year or half a year after release. Rentals at launch would severely kill revenue.
 

lefty1117

Gold Member
Hm I work for a book publisher, we are testing out rentals of ebooks etc. It's the rental market that will kill the returns/trade-in market. This is another of those things that MS proposed at the beginning of this generation, part of the original vision for the Xbox One, that was maybe just a couple of years ahead of where the consumer base was on those topics. But now we see people coming around to it. I think it makes a lot of sense.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Hm I work for a book publisher, we are testing out rentals of ebooks etc. It's the rental market that will kill the returns/trade-in market. This is another of those things that MS proposed at the beginning of this generation, part of the original vision for the Xbox One, that was maybe just a couple of years ahead of where the consumer base was on those topics. But now we see people coming around to it. I think it makes a lot of sense.

From that perspective it makes total sense and the pricing seems to line up pretty well too in that case. If you think about this as the "Buy this brand new game for $20, have access to it for 3 months, and you don't have to hassle with buying a physical copy and trading it in to Gamestop when you're done with it." it might actually work. Either way, more flexible pricing options to match available consumer demand is never a bad thing.

Microsoft benefits because they get a cut of that "rental fee".
Publishers benefit because it would probably put a huge dent in the returns/trade-in market.
(Some) gamers benefit because they're already basically doing this anyway
buy game for $60, play for a few weeks, trade in for $35-$40 maybe

I could see this being successful but I also don't see very many publishers offering this up for their game's launch. It'll probably be most successful in the 4-6 week window post-launch where a lot of games traditionally struggle to maintain their $60 value proposition and new sales traditionally start crawling.
 

CRAIG667

Member
I'm sure I read on Reddit that it isn't rental but instead you can 'pay off' your new games in 3 monthly instalments, which makes more sense given that Game Pass is a rental scheme of sorts.
 

NickFire

Member
I'm not a huge fan of this idea, but will reserve judgment. I'm concerned this might prevent a lot of games from ever hitting bargain bin prices on sales, or from seeing any decent sales in the first few months post-release.
 
Interesting...between this, GamePass, Digital Game sales, it's as if Microsoft is going back to its original XB1 E3 promises of digital licenses/ownership (save for some things, like not being able to sell disk games) on the XBox One.

And you know what--this makes sense. Instead of announcing this like the asshat Matrick did, Microsoft is slowly taking the good bits and weaving them into the fabric of XBox Live. This way, by the time the next gen of consoles drops, Microsoft won't be having to announce "new" digital ownership features--they'll already be in place for some time, and Microsoft can focus on system hardware specs and games.
 
Interesting...between this, GamePass, Digital Game sales, it's as if Microsoft is going back to its original XB1 E3 promises of digital licenses/ownership (save for some things, like not being able to sell disk games) on the XBox One.

And you know what--this makes sense. Instead of announcing this like the asshat Matrick did, Microsoft is slowly taking the good bits and weaving them into the fabric of XBox Live. This way, by the time the next gen of consoles drops, Microsoft won't be having to announce "new" digital ownership features--they'll already be in place for some time, and Microsoft can focus on system hardware specs and games.
The way it was first announced was terrible and not well thought out. Deep within though there was some good ideas.
 
The way it was first announced was terrible and not well thought out. Deep within though there was some good ideas.

Agreed. There were some good ideas, but Matrick is a moron and completely ran the XB1 system and launch into the ground, so those good ideas were lost in his incompetence.

But hey, maybe he’s doing better at Zynga? :D
 
Agreed. There were some good ideas, but Matrick is a moron and completely ran the XB1 system and launch into the ground, so those good ideas were lost in his incompetence.

But hey, maybe he’s doing better at Zynga? :D

It was a shit show from the start. Too much advertising of non-gaming functions, Kinect required, $500 price tag, having to sign in every 24 hours to verify content. Not pretty at all and Phil has been trying to clean up the mess ever since but sadly the games are still not coming like I would want them to.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Interesting...between this, GamePass, Digital Game sales, it's as if Microsoft is going back to its original XB1 E3 promises of digital licenses/ownership (save for some things, like not being able to sell disk games) on the XBox One.

And you know what--this makes sense. Instead of announcing this like the asshat Matrick did, Microsoft is slowly taking the good bits and weaving them into the fabric of XBox Live. This way, by the time the next gen of consoles drops, Microsoft won't be having to announce "new" digital ownership features--they'll already be in place for some time, and Microsoft can focus on system hardware specs and games.
There is a very important difference between an option and an enforcement though. I have no issues with games also being available as downloads, as dl-rentals or as subscriptions, as long as I keep my full-rights-retail versions as an option (the only one I even consider). I have no issues with the current initiatives which are merely offering new options. But if Microsoft ends physical distribution or limits the rights on physcial games again, they can fuck right off.
 

Delryk

Member
Game pass are for old games except for MS exclusives, so rentals on new releases could be where the money's at next!. that's actually a really good idea.
 
More options the merrier IMO.

Physical full purchase. Digital full purchase. Game Pass. Rentals. Cloud streaming (future).

Why not?
 
So something like ps now on xbox

Honestly, until they can get the streaming figured out (and Sony doesn’t—I have FttP and Sony’s streaming service still looks like excrement) I prefer the GamePass model.

And to the other poster that mentioned limiting rights on disk media at the original XB1 briefing...yeah, you’re right, and I don’t think that will ever happen again anytime soon, as stores like GameStop will revolt.
 
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