Publishers "war" against the used games market now targets rental places as Blockbuster is reporting publishers have pushed them to end their recent trade-in services in return for better financial and supply support from gaming companies.
The goal appears to boost the declining rental market as a way to combat the used game market. As well as, strengthen the once relatively strong revenue stream gaming rentals provided to the publishers before DLC became a standard revenue stream this generation.
There are some concerns gaming companies might end up doing something similar to what Hollywood companies did with Redbox by having rental copies of films missing certain features or content as a way to help push the sales of retail DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
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"We have ramped up the rental side of our business and we have got an awful lot of support from publishers." Blockbuster said, with the idea that boosting rentals will take a chunk out of the trade-in market. "Publishers like renting as it takes away from trade-ins. The problem with trade-ins is the publisher doesn't get any money. The advantage of renting is that they get quite a lot of money."
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Blockbuster did admit even with the new support, they still have to provide the rental service in a way which would be cost-effective for potential customers while also guaranteeing a steady supply of games to keep the rental side of the company profitable.
http://www.screwattack.com/news/bloc...-end-trade-ins
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Daily Recap:
1) According to Edge magazine, another game in the Killzone series is currently in development along with a brand new series to be announced soon by Guerrilla Games.
http://www.screwattack.com/news/guer...something-else
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http://www.talesunion.com/news/namco...dio--1931.html
3) Microsoft is holding a public contest involving creating new and existing ideas for their Kinect device with the finalists receiving a monetary grant, dev kits, and other stuff to create their idea into an actual product for the company.
http://www.screwattack.com/news/micr...r-kinect-ideas