Wednesday · December 15 2004
Blockbuster drops late fees
You have a week-long grace period. After that, you buy it. This is their best bet at heading off Netflix's claims of “stop worrying about late fees.” I don't rent many movies, but this makes game rentals 2 weeks long (assuming I understand this right): plenty of time to finish most games for a $6 rental fee.
But Blockbuster still requires you to get off your ass and go to the store and hope that they have what you want. Netflix and gamefly allow you to manage your queue at your convenience, online, at work.
I'm on both Netflix and Gamefly. I may need to reconfigure my Gamefly subscription. I still have X-Men and Prince of Persia, while i'm still addicted to SSX3 (which I bought from them for $14 after renting it).
The distance isn't an issue for us. We live a block away from Blockbuster. With respect to games, the inventory at Blockbuster is terrible for new releases, but how much better is it with Gamefly? My gaming habits tend to stick to a game or two at a time anyway. What I really need to do is sell back the ones I've finished or tired of.
I'm not going to argue against the brilliance of Netflix or Blockbuster Online for renting movies, but as I said, I rarely rent movies. One per month at the very most. I'll have to switch my viewing habits from the theatre to the DVD player come spring, but in all likelihood, I probably still won't rent that many.
Gamefly seems to have everything in large quantities. I got X-Men Legends a week after it was released. There's no indication that you'd have to wait for Halo 2 or Prince of Persia 2, but I'm not 100% sure.
A big reason why I got the Netflix is because there are so many movies, especially classics, that I've never seen. The idea is that having them come in the mail will give me more incentive. So far, it's sort of worked.