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Renting vs. Buying
I own a lot of Xbox and Xbox 360 games… some good, some bad… but the hit/miss ratio is much better for all my 360 games, mostly because of game renting. Starting around the time the 360 launched, I signed up for Gamefly and I’ve alternated between the two and three game plans. It is definitely a good deal for me, I usually only rent my second tier list of games, ones that I think I’ll like but I’m not already positive I’ll buy. Sometimes I even rent games that I’m pretty sure I’ll never ever buy, just because I want to try them out. I suppose you could do the same with Blockbuster or some other store, but I’m big into these ‘send to my house’ programs (like Netflix…. did you know they have RSS that shows you what movies I currently have at home?). At one point, right after launch, I added every 360 game to the list, which lead to checking out some games I would never have purchased (like Rumble Roses!). I find it especially useful for kids games, because the quality can really vary on those, and sometimes Xbox Live demos aren’t really enough for me to decide if I like a game or not.
Occasionally I’ve even gone ahead and purchased the game through Gamefly, which is usually a pretty good price… you keep the game you have so you already know that it isn’t scratched up and that it is working well in your 360 (and if it isn’t working well, don’t buy that one!). Overall, it is my way of playing more games, without paying $60 bucks for each one and possibly ending up with a copy of Over G Fighters on my shelf.
Interested in checking it out yourself (they do Wii, Xbox 1 and PS2/3 games too)? Here’s my ‘sign up a friend link’ and here is one without any additional stuff on it… use whichever one you’d prefer 🙂
Thoughts on this post? Feel free to reach out on Bluesky!