Video rental company Redbox said that game sales are proving lucrative for the company, and that Wii games in particular are popular among its customers. The kiosk-based rental company issued a statement Monday saying that it had seen over 4 million sales for 2011 and that around 5,000 new kiosks have been deployed throughout the country. At the present time, 27,000 machines offer game rentals.
"[The Wii] has the highest install base, and our consumer is a casual gamer, and they've responded very well," says Redbox video game vice president Joel Resnik.
"From an inventory perspective, this is very different from the traditional brick and mortar rental, where a store has about five to 10 copies of a game available to try. 67 percent of America is within a five minute drive of a Redbox kiosk.”
While digital distribution is the soup of the day among many retailers and renters, Redbox still sees physical media as a major asset, noting that “physical media is the lion’s share.”
"Our company feels very comfortable with the life of DVD or Blu-ray and other physical media, and how long we believe physical media will live from a business perspective," he said. "Download is the next most feasible business solution... but consumers look at Redbox as a physical media kiosk rental-driven solution. Until we have that base in place and are able to engage people that way, we're not thinking about engaging them through any other model."
Source: IndustryGamers
