Here at B-TEN we absolutely love the opportunities we get to talk to members of the gaming community about what matters most to our readers. This week I got the opportunity to briefly talk to Joel Kesnick, Redbox Vice President and Head of Gaming, about Wii U. Although Redbox is not currently carrying PS4, Xbox One or Wii U games nationwide just yet, our discussion focused on Wii U. I want to thank Mr. Kesnick for giving me the time out of his busy schedule to talk briefly.
Redbox Instant by Verizon is the newest of arrivals into the streaming video arena. Most people are well familiar with the RedBox brand, having seen or rented movies or games from one of it’s over 43,000 kiosks, but will that be enough to ensure success? Only time will tell.
Triverse writes, "Additional bits of information that can be gleaned from the press release, that Redbox Instant by Verizon made available, includes some hardware that we can expect to see an App of some sort made available for. Namely, LG Smart TV and Blu-ray Players, Samsung Blu-ray Players and Televisions with SmartHub(TM), iOS (a given) and Android (again, a given). What is mysteriously left out here is consoles of any kind – no mention of Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or either the Nintendo Wii or Wii U which recently launched and is setting sales records. Could these unmentioned platforms be in the planning stages or are they waiting for official approval by the manufacturers before making public any support for any particular console?"
What I don't understand is why VuDu or any of those other video services do not lower their price to compete with Red Box?
If RedBox can charge $1.20 for a 1 day rental and make a profit why do companies like VuDu charge $3.99?
If I could rent on VuDu on my Xbox 360 for say $2 (or less), I would much rather do that than drive to a Red Box.
The reason I say $1.99 because I know red box makes extra cash off people that bring their DVD in a day late. But red box also has a higher operating cost: Cost of kiosk, cost to load them with dvds, cost to pay someone to change the ads on them, cost for damaged disc, cost to pay location to have kiosk there etc.
Gosh darn. This seems like something I'd have to get if it comes to gaming consoles.
If it had movies that were dvd releases streamed like amazing spider man id do it but i already have netflix and all i need to do is wait
This week, Sam and Geoff list the winners of The PGL Awards and talk about the news from Verizon and Redbox. Jagger2K7 joins in the Ustream.tv chatroom for The Weekly Whatchas. The music this week is "String Theory" by Doomtree from the album 'No Kings.'