The Wholesale Forums

[prankster101]

is there a viable niche within the online videogame rental business to accomodate retro games (snes, megadrive etc)?

also, does anyone have any experience of publishing deleted/import games in their domestic territory? can this be done and how does one approach the developers?

thanks

[anotheruser]

Not my area of expertise but the topic has been discussed before. You'll get a lot of information by using the search function.

[PT]

Like Mike said, do a search, a lot of people wanting to start up similar companies just recently. What your suggesting is a little different though. However, is this a viable business? Personally, I don't think so. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of people who want retro games. Those who played them as a child, looking to revisit fond memories. Then there's the collectors, the majority of which have no interest in actually playing the games. Would these people be interested in renting the games?

You've also got to think about where your going to get the games. How easy are they to come by? Considering there no longer in production. Which means you would have to buy them second hand, and shop around for top condition. However, this is where problems may arise. As I know now, that you need to have games which were designed for rental use. Whether that's the case with retro games, I don't know. Were these even made back then? You would need to seek some advice regarding this.

I'm not convinced this business would work, there are many obstacles in the way. Not to mention the competition from companies like LoveFilm.

Good Luck!

[NorthyImports]

whats the publishing side of it as the above have just focused on the games id like to know about the publishing

[Froogle]

I don't think it would work as the games can be bought too cheap in second hand shops. You've also got the problem of because they are so old they could break easily. If they do how do you replace them?

The other problem is the postage on them wouldn't be to cheap like CDs or DVDs.

[FiveStarWholesale]

Originally Posted by Froogle

I don't think it would work as the games can be bought too cheap in second hand shops.

Exactly.

Why would someone pay a couple of quid to rent when they could buy for the same amount.

I suppose you could create a niche by offering rare games for hire, but the problem with this is that they will be hard to locate.

Well done for thinking of something (slightly) different from the norm though!