Got My Xbox! – Now to Rent a Game

I got my Xbox just before Christmas and I say woo wee – been a long time lonely lonely lonely time! I’ve had too much time to spare lately. This time (I had an original Xbox a few years back) I’ve made a decision to rent from game rental companies instead of just purchasing them and blog about them here. I found no sites that gave good quick reviews of Xbox 360 games so I thought this could be useful. Tell me what you think. To break in this blog I’ll start with an overview of the game rental companies.

Game Rental Companies

My laptop isn’t made for gaming so getting the Xbox is a good decision for me. When I bought the Xbox in December, I bought 2 games with it that amounted to $130 dollars. A couple weeks later I was looking at my Xbox – cold and unused. So I thought that, “There had to be a better way to spent that $130″. Then I remember last year my brother told me about GameFly, hmm…

I figured rentals would be about the same as video store rental memberships so initially rental companies threw me back price-wise but a game makes more sense to be more expensive.

Game Rental Pricing

All these companies provide limitless due-dates, and free shipping, and options for one game and two game-at-a-time rentals, and a couple have three-game rentals.

GameFly

» 1 Out at a Time / $15.95 / month
» 2 Out at a Time / $22.95 / month

GameZnFlix

» 1 Out at a Time / $8.99 each month
» 2 Out at a Time / $12.99 each month

Game Rang

» 1 Out at a Time / $17.95 each month
» 2 Out at a Time / $24.95 each month

Gotta Play

» 1 Out at a Time / $12.95 each month
» 2 Out at a Time / $20.95 each month

Game Mine

» 1 Out at a Time / $12.95 each month
» 2 Out at a Time / $18.95 each month

Initial Impressions

A quick look through these sites and I was easily excited. drool slobber – alot to choose through.

I looked at GameFly first. It has very nice website and a good number of game titles – the most of any of these companies. GameFly appears to be very professional. Since delivery dates for all of these companies is about 5 business days (a week), I couldn’t see myself doing more than one rental exchange in a month – a week to get a game, a week to get them back – so I was hoping for a price lower than $20.

Gottaplay is very nice and slightly cheaper than GameFly. A good website and a good number of titles on top. Gottaplay has a feature where a member can trade in games they already own. GottaPlay titles on the website are nearly as full as GameFly’s are.

Game Mine has a more limited selection but most the popular titles appear to be there. Game Mine though has an awesome 6 monthy price:

» Prepaid 6 months / $71.70 ($11.95 per month)
» Prepaid 12 months / $119.40 ( $9.95 per month)

GameFly wasn’t the most expensive surprisingly – Game Rang was. I didn’t investigate Game Rang too long. For the elite price, I wasn’t real impressed with Gamerang web service – it isn’t well designed and seemed dated and not well maintained.

mikedep pointed out there’s nothing worse than spending $60 for a game that you’ll never play. He pointed me to a critics site that aggregates a median of Xbox 360 game scores. The Official Xbox magazine reviews can also be helpful – though I tend to be careful of commercial reviews. Thanks, mike.

Update:

I decided to go with GameFly… at least to start. I hope to try GottaPlay somewhere down the road. I made this decision because I discovered that GameFly tells whether a games title availability is high, medium or low. Small distinction but I discovered I could possibly get some popular titles fairly soon. GottaPlay may have this too but I’ll have to find someone that uses it.

Since this is my first time using a game rental service I liked the idea of a discounted first month both of these companies do this.

The GameFly process was simple enough. Sign up needs to be done over several forms, and you’ll need a credit card for rental purposes, no PayPal, checks… Your card will be billed until you end membership.

GameFly uses what is called a GameQ to select and prioritize the games a person would like to receive. The first available games on the GameQ are sent to you and can be reordered. Its easy to add and re-organize games. I just order a few – including “Orange Box”. I’ll write about them soon.