Nintendo's Battle Against Video Game Rentals

Japan still didnt give up after that. Afterwards they mandate games upped the difficulty of earlier levels so fewer gamers could beat the game in a rental period. Arguably the most notable example of this is the video game adaptation of the Lion King’s Cant wait to be King level.

First time learning this. Surprising on the booklet replacement. I agree with the legal battle about the game copies.

Why are you people so obsessed with a company that hates you? Nintendo hates their customers. They wont even let you guys host tournaments. Stop buying their games ffs they are for children

One more proof of what a predatory company Nintendo always was - and an even better reason not to patronize them. 🚮

Now there's only one😢 just one

It’s October 2023 and the Redbox in my grocery store just disappeared. I think digital downloads have killed Redbox too…

I hate it but at the same time i get it

Great video, I would just make the suggestion of setting playback speed to 1.25x

Y’all remember Lunar the Silver Star? Blockbuster had that game rented out non-stop for months back in 1993.

If you wound like more information the videos The Format that Bankrupted Circuit City and Flexplay: The Disposable DVD that Failed (Thankfully) has that more info. The lost of Blockbuster Video to me was very bad. One of the resaones it was bad is that my internet sinks, 2 since Blockbuster was the cash cow of 2 strip malls and they lost closed every sotre incuding an Wal-Mart wean they lost Blockbuster and 3 is an iusse my loacl libery has that Blockbuster never had. See by going by the letter C my loacl libery puts Care Baers rigth next to Child's Play.

This is one of my favorite gay creators my nuts

Its ironic how Nintendo fought rentals so much, and now got rid of their old virtual console system in favor of the Switch Online subscription service, which is basically renting except Nintendo gets 100% of the profits.

Surprised you didn't mention how developers purposely made thier games extremely difficult to ensure it would take longer than a rental period to complete one.

you can always count on nintendo to be a heartless, bloodthirsy corporation....just like disney.

Man, the nostalgia of this! I remember that being a highlight of family time, going to the video store to rent a couple of movies to watch during dinner or just for fun on the weekend. Also, going to the video store or store within a grocery store to rent video games and hoping you get the same cartridge so your save data is still on it. Before memory cards and console storage that's all we had to save data, so yea it was an awesome feeling to re-rent the same cartridge to continue my playthroughs. I actually kind of miss it. Kids today just won't know that feeling. Wow I'm getting old lol

Why were they not getting royalties for rentals? Seems pretty obvious. Try before you buy, give a percentage to Nintendo, if the customer likes the game, they'll buy one.

Hated blockbuster but loved those tiny mom and pop small town rental places.

Classic Yamauchi/Lincoln corporate greed attitude. They tried so hard to make Nintendo a monopoly.

Video game rentals were amazing growing up. My copy of sky cooper was a Hollywood video retired rental. I think it was a special of buy an old rental get one free kinda thing. It has a special box and everything.

It’s crazy the difference between the image/brand Nintendo has in the hearts of generations of gamers vs. the actual reality of the company.

THANKS NINTENDO FOR KILLING OUR CHILDHOOD FUN OF GAME RENTAL. ASSHOLES!!

I remember when I was a kid my father came home one day and told me a local gas station started renting NES games and it blew my damn mind.

In the end Nintendo beat Blockbuster. Nintendo lives on and Blockbuster is just a relic of it's former self. But Nintendo did have a good argument, Nintendo and games devs never meant for their works to be rented out by third parties. But the argument could be made that Nintendo wasn't actually any money because the rental stores were still buying them. Still, rentals were a blatant misuse of copyrighted works. They were making money off of other people's works. Nintendo and other game devs and publishers should have gotten better deals. Either have renters wait a few months after the release of a game or have the renters pay royalties for being allowed to rent out the games.

Would love to see a follow up video 7 years in the future. Only because i laughed when you sounded shocked that there were only 51 stores left. In 2023 the shock is that there were still that many open at the time. Lol

It's good to know that Nintendo has always been petty lol

So in Japan you can rent music but not games and in America you can rent games but no music?

I wish I coulda rented games during my childhood. My family rented from the local video store that had way lower renting costs than Blockbuster.

I remember renting videogames... it was worse that going to an Arcade but actually fun.

Nintendo shitty company

"Video game rental is nothing less than commercial rape"

What a disgusting thing to say.

I often wondered why I never owned a Nintendo 64 and why I switched to pc gaming. Maybe this is why.

My family rented the Genesis multiple times at Blockbuster before my parents finally bought one for us kids. Memories...

I love your videos!
I hope you keep making them.

Down to one blockbuster today 😊

“There are only 51”


7 years later: just 1 BlockBuster left in the world

Little did they know, the greed would collapse a culture that was fun for everyone. I mean really, billions of dollars were made by the inventers and distributors so...they could have just shared the wealth. Don't have to have every Super Mario Coin on the board so that everyone can win. Let people have fun without so much stress strain of money. People were still paying to have fun without going broke. Lots of renters still ended up purchasing the damn game! Here we are today...stressed out nation with all the community sweetness gone. I mean going to a rental store enriched our culture and human interaction. Just because big companies could not see the value of people sharing their material. So over social media taking over everything that is human. It's about balance also. Greed will destroy the world.

Good old SEGA .Sega do what Nintendon't 😂

Renting a game before buying it is only proper for customers. Like why should I buy a game and not like it and have to deal with some store manager giving me a hard time about buying playing and returning. If we play it by renting it, it only allows us to be happy when buying a game we tried and like.

Nintendo being a bitch company, they haven't changed. The number of times i rented a SNES game to fall in love with it and go out to buy it, usually from where I rented it.

Love the outro "funding for___ is provided/brought to you in part by.." brings me back to public access tv from WTTW and programs like Sesame Street.

My parent divorced when I was 3 in 1988. I went to my dads in the weekends and he aleays would taje me to the video store. Blockbuster..hollywood video hes rent movies and id get to rent two games. I think my first rental was Joe and mac honestly but my dad had a new and a bunch of games before that. He owns alot of VHS. He also got my my Snes n64 and alot of games. Love you dad

at school, i give my game to a friend and let them play it
the next day they give it back to me;

nintendo: ok

company: here have this game
give it back to me in a few days ok?

nintendo: wait thats illegal

In Sweden, we had library video game rentals that were completely free back in the 2000s.

its so funny to me that nintendo, the one gaming company that tries the hardest to maintain this kid friendly appeal, is the worst of them all, and they try to bully and strongarm anyone that gets in their way.

nintendo fuckin sucks man

This is the first before Netflix era exists

Nice

I miss rentals so much.

In 2023 there is only 1 store left...