An old American video game staple seems to have been rediscovered in Japan recently.
Most older gamers today will remember renting games from long defunct physical stores like Blockbuster. For a time, GameFly provided that function for gamers in more recent years, renting out consoles alongside games. GameFly still exists today, but of course, it’s long been overtaken by the industry itself. Steam succeeded in its mission to supplant physical retailers for PC gaming, and the console companies have also adjusted, with direct sales, digital distribution, and their own incentive programs.
As reported by Automaton, this dying or dormant business in America has found new life in Japan. GEO has revealed that their PlayStation 5 rental service has been completely booked since the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds. As a result, gamers who wanted to rent PlayStation 5 units from them are going to have to wait a while.
GEO Corporation is a Japanese store that sells and rents out entertainment of all kinds. As explained in this Sumifuku article, they describe themselves as a “Hyper Media Shop”, because they offer DVDs, Blu-Rays, books, music, for sale and for rent, with a separate division for used items. And old and new video games alike are their biggest business.
Automaton claims that GEO launched their PlayStation 5 rental service last February 28. With 400 branches all over Japan, there’s a huge potential in this market, assuming it isn’t just a fluke for Monster Hunter Wilds. GEO offers 8 day rentals at approximately $ 6.56 and 15 day rentals at approximately $11.92, which is incredibly cheap for most gamers.
Now, some of you may not agree about how fair those rates are. A used PlayStation 5 can go on sale in a GameStop between $ 400 to $ 500, and you could get them even cheaper brand new in seasonal sales, as low as $ 350. But that’s the situation in America. Last August, prices for PlayStation products in Japan skyrocketed across the board. As one gamer explained at the time, on paper it looked like the PlayStation 5 went up to $ 550, but for the local Japanese, it felt like a price hike to as much as $ 800.
Suffice to say that Japanese gamers got priced out of the PlayStation 5 before the PlayStation 5 Pro even launched. But with the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds, the limited supply of Xbox consoles in the country, and plain old economics, gamers took the opportunity to rent PlayStation 5s.
And this may be how not only Japanese gamers, but many gamers around the world will be playing video games, if the economics of playing video games also becomes unfeasible where they live. As the industry has been looking for their own solutions with the likes of Game Pass and porting games to PC, we may end up returning to some old side businesses to keep the industry going. Let’s hold out for video game arcades to come back again.
