Agreed. That's why I couldnt watch folks like ConnerTheWaffle anymore. Nice guy and good content, but the persona he gives off was just...annoying in my opinion.
I rented Mario Kart SNES like 50 times from the local rental store; I could've bought it probably twice for the amount of money that I (my mom) spent lol
Yes, demos/trials are good. But the problem is the publisher and the devs were not getting any kind of royalty from the rentals (while other industries did or had grace periods to allow them to sell). Specially, considering the ton of people who liked the games, could buy them, but didn't, simply because they didn't want to...
@@mikeluna2026 Especially how bad those company have gotten this year. Buying Rental now is like paying your bully lunch money, the bully being the gaming company. Developer and Publisher alike.
Alvaro U. Luna they shouldn’t get shyt this is America the land of opportunity everyone takes advantages of loop holes and this is exactly what that was a loop hole
In theory a company is supposed to do beta testing to different demographics to see if a product will sell on different levels of production, starting with the concept, the characters, gameplay testing and so on and so forth, so that pretty much eliminates the need for rental to do a market study, also companies like nintendo are famous for not really listening to costumer feedback and pretty much go and say "hey, here's this product, buy it if you like it, if not we simply won't produce it anymore" it's a risky tactic but hey, they've been around for nearly a century and still very healthy all things considered, so this particular issue is more complicated than you think. Lastly a fact that couldn't be denied at the time is that video game rental did made a direct blow to the industry, movies had the revenue of ticket sales, video games didn't really the proposed "wait one year" legislation was a good half way point, maybe not a whole year but 6 months and everyone would be pretty happy.
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode! Today we are learning about Nintendo's attempt to end video game rentals. I'm sure most of us have fond memories of going to the video store and picking out a game or movie, so enjoy the wave of nostalgia!
Excellent video as always Norm. I used to rent NES games back in 1991 from a local indoor market here in the UK. It was interesting to hear about the legal battles going on in the background that us kids were oblivious to back then. Thanks for sharing and for the great content as always 👍👾👌
+Gaming Historian Have you ever considered having your fans do the voiceovers in your videos (eg. reading a quote from someone)? Sign me up if you ever do
God, I miss brick and mortar places. It used to be such a good time, going to the Blockbuster or the Hollywood video or the moviestop. It was a night out with the family. Mama and Daddy would get a movie for themselves and us kids would get a videogame and stay up till late trying to get as much fun out of the game as possible for the amount of days we were allowed to keep it. It was always so much fun just going to these places. Digital media is superior - yes. But it is still a shame that my kids will never know the fun of going out with the family to find that one treasure in the video store.
I miss them and cd/tape stores Wandering huge bins of music and getting a whole album ....got so many terrible albums and games but it was great cause got alot of gems and oddities
Hollywood video indeed lol. That was my spot as a kid. My older brother would rent games, i'd rent some action or disney movie. Really did feel like a treat, before video on demand came
+TheVileDelinquent I feel the same way. I try to explain the whole video/game rental experience to my son, but he'll never really get it. How much fun it was just browsing the various aisles trying to decide what to get this week. Sometimes it'd take me an hour or more just to decide. Now everything's readily available at the click of a button. Convenient, yes, but I still prefer the old way of doing things. Nowadays I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want, yet rarely watch anything. It sounds cheesy, but for me the magic's just not there anymore.
Yep, it was a black case with a Blockbuster sticker on it. I remember the look of the SNES inside it when i first opened it. It had 2 huge latches you had to open and the material was bumpy.
Renting games in the 90s was fierce. We had a local independent store that had all the latest releases. One weekend we got Desert Strike and it was awesome. You'd also meet friends randomly at the video store. Those were the days.
@@NickIggler1969 Fellas is it gay to breathe next to your homie in the video store? But seriously, sometimes I swear its probably easier being gay than dealing with whatever problem men seem to have with doing ANYTHING around other men.
Japanese capitalism is considerably less competition and consumer friendly than most other nations' versions. Immense conglomerates that would be unthinkable in the US (called zaibatsu, and then keretsu) are worshiped as noble oligarchs that almost totally control and dictate the Japanese economy. High ranking executives are often appointed to critical government positions literally the day they retire, with zero oversight or approval, and nobody considers it unusual or unethical. That's precisely how the Fukushima Daiichi disaster occurred, because the nuclear oversight board was entirely composed of either former Tokyo Electric Power Company executives or others with direct financial ties to TEPCO. Corruption elevated to Asian cultural icon. "Father is always right". sorry for wall of text, but I get really tired of hearing people talk about how progressive and enlightened Japan is compared to America or Europe. In reality, their brand of capitalism is MORE evil, if anything.
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III I think in general when people talk about or think Japan is "progressive" its in terms of their technological breakthroughs and robotics, NOT in terms of government.
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III "Immense conglomerates that would be unthinkable in the US" That's really just laughable. A small number of massive private financial bodies have the US in their back pocket, from tech giants to the private bankers running the fed-res. Japan was rebuilt by the US after the war; it's economic structure is merely a reflection of what the US oligarchs desire. A trial run for their own design.
Nintendo Japan actually had a direct from satellite to your system "rental" or demo thing called satelliview. Sega has a similar thing, and a cable TV like version in the US (I could be getting the companies off here, but one of them did).
Had to look at the date of the video. "Now there are 51" heh now there are 0 Blockbusters. There's an independently owned one in Bend OR that still uses the name but BB is gone.
Today there is only one store left. And it is in Bend, Oregon owned by a private company. Last year a woman in Sydney closed the second last store that was almost entirely funded by private donations.
@@LordZordid there is still video store in Indiana a family video that is still going with being able to rent games today its litterally right next to a little ceasar's pizza
@@LordZordid i know now a friend of mine told me the family video in Crawfordsville Indiana right next to the little Cesar's pizza closed down which tellls me they all did
I'm actually lived through the time of going to a store to rent movies and video games and it all seems like a very foreign concept to me now and I am very nostalgic for it
Idk that it's that dramatic. But I remember it as well. Nothing felt worse than waiting until Friday to go in after school to rent a movie and then 4/5 of my top choices were out of stock. Not an issue today.
I loved rental stores. My dad did some sort of computer repair at General Electric. He had a buddy with a son and his buddy always knew how to copy games and bypass the security protections. He would even do stuff to our consoles to allow them to illegally play games. At my peak I had around 200 games and all the popular stuff only available in Japan. The Japanese games were more of a novelty as you couldn't play them for long. They didn't translate them to English because it wasn't sold for a English speaking market. Sorry about the rant but I went down memory lane watching this video.
I remember it. And while I feel that nostalgia as well I think it's better now not having to go out just to get a game or a movie. So much easier to stream.
Good topic to talk about. Should've mentioned how Nintendo eventually had a Championship through Blockbuster at one point (There's a DK-Country Blockbuster Cartridge) and there were even Blockbuster exclusive N64 games.
Doesn't mean they weren't still at war. Apple and Samsung sue each other yet Samsung makes parts for the iPhone. That's just how smart business is done.
That's how Gamestop should operate: charge people for a subscription service where we can rent games for a certain amount of time, then we return them kinda like a library for games. Or you could outright buy the game you rented cuz you liked it.
@@luisangelpinedabenard3829 lol you must not know about how scummy Nintendo actually is. Don't get me wrong I love the games and hardware but holy hell does that company despise their customers.
@@Milliardo__Peacecraft Nintendo isn't that bad, especially when you compare them to DIsney. Nintendo is just very very protective of their IP. Where as disney just wants to extort you and propagandize you. Nintendo just doesn't want you to pirate their games.
@@TheAdmirableAdmiral yeahhhh that's not true all they care about is making a buck and they finally found their maker when emulators popped up all over and they knew they couldn't prosecute everyone so the decided to pull money from direct consumers. Nintendo is on top and everyone knows it, but they are shit as well. I mean come on the rental business was proven to create more wealth for video games considering how long campaigns tooke to complete. Rentals hooked gamers into actually buying a game they wouldn't have bought in the first place. Nintendo as a company sucks the video games are great tho imo!
I remember the times in the early 2000’s when rental store were selling their inventories, you could get your dose of nes, super nes and others for dirt cheap
Not quite the same as games, but I remember when my local blockbuster closed in 2004 and my mam brought home maybe 40 Disney movies all for really cheap!!! Was the best day ever when I was a kid lol
the closest i ever got to a N64 is my dad renting the entire console from blockbuster with mario 64 for 3 days.... i remember waking up at 6am just to play lololol
I visited the Bend location last year, it was like walking back in time. There were a handful of tourists when we were there, but I still spotted some locals actually renting movies.
@@trucy1337 Nintendo loves money more then anything. I'm so sick of hearing people say "Nintendo loves their customers", No Nintendo loves their customers money.
@Diabeto Kills I'm not even saying that it's wrong for a company to love money. That's how a company works! All video game companies love their customers money more than the customer. They would be out of business if they didn't.
Anyone else thinking digital rentals is bullshit? If I'm looking for a particularly old movie and maybe less popular movie, I have to filter through like 3-4 services before I can find it, and then its something ridiculous like a $10 rental. Then I realize torrent is free... EDIT: Also try your public libraries if you want to recreate the video rental feel. My library has some really awesome old VHS & DVD selection.
This is why people still hold onto physical media. Streaming and rental services are great. But they don't release everything on other formats. I still have DVDs that they never released for Blu Ray or digital. I have VHS tapes for the same reason. Once they release it to the next format, I get it. But there are so many good movies and shows out there that these studios own but won't do anything with them. The only way to have it is to of owned it when it first came out and then you're SoL any other time. The studios only mainly focus on the blockbusters that made them money instead of investing in small runs of their other obscure stuff.
@@unitedhybrid187 Actually pretty sad, because I found so many obscure movies and cult classic back when our local rental stores were still around... some of these locally owned ones had VHS and DVDs jammed in every nook and cranny of their stores, like library. A lot of those old videos are hard to find online, and usually not through kosher methods of obtaining them.
What I loved about Blockbuster was the chance to try out video games that I might asked for Birthday or Christmas. Without Blockbuster or retail stores I might not had the chance to experience many games or barely have many at all… 😢
I feel like movie and video game rentals were a very family/friend oriented occasion. I remember getting together with my friends every week deciding who was going to rent what games and movies, then deciding who’s house the sleep over was going to be at. Then spending the entire night watching movies and playing games and sleeping the entire next day. Loved when it got dark early and sunrise was late. Just more time to get no sleep playing games and watching movies.
A good friend was at a mom & pop video store that was going out of business. He bought every game they had (Which was nes & snes) with boxes, instructions & the games in pristine condition. Box upon box of shrinkwrapped nes & snes games. It was incredible to see.
KhrisCell, sorry... Even before you typed this that Oregon location (believe was S of Portland in a small town downtown) has been CLOSED FOR MONTHS (late '18-early '19). That was THE LAST FRANCHISED BLOCKBUSTER in existence worldwide (others outside of US changed their names already and the US corporate ones closed several years ago).
Shame the last two here in Alaska shut down. Here in Alaska, it’s one of the few areas where rentals are still going due to the problem with streaming.
When our Blockbuster went out of business, my buddy bought it and runs it as a locally owned store. He still does great to this day renting movies and games.
these were merely because if a game was garbage, a person would find that out when renting it, then the devs wouldn't get a profit because no one would want to buy their bad games, it was only to protect terrible programmers, because if a game is actually good, the costumer would go out and get their own copy instead of wasting all that money renting it repeatedly
First Nintendo I bought was from blockbuster in that metal case. That new foam and plastic smell still is one of the best memories I've ever had as a kid.
I remember when Blockbuster in the UK started doing game rentals, it was nearly entirely EA games on the Mega Drive (Genesis), virtually nothing else... stuff like Sword of Sodan, Budokai, Dark Castle and James Pond. I know EA produced their own carts, so maybe they did a deal with Blockbusters before anyone else. :S Interesting.
And now BB is no more. Just an independently owned store in Bend OR that uses the name but they have to buy everything retail themselves. Looks more like they're making money selling merchandise by branding themselves as the last Blockbuster.
I love watching your show! I feel like I'm watching a legit PBS show. I have a love for games and this really helps me reflect on the games that I loved so much
Nintendo has always been behind the times; I especially love the fact that Saga was making marketing deals while Nintendo was suing everyone... even today. There wasn't any free trials, demos or UA-cam back then, so the only way to trial a game was to rent it or if you were lucky, you knew someone who owned it. Most games I rented, I ended up purchasing.
Nintendo are modern day DickTurpin😂 . Always taking someone to court to fir one thing or another . Hardware prices never really drop, they don't make any loss on their products unlike Sony and Xbox . I also liked to rent games then I would purchase the ones I liked . Bit like Games Pass now for me , why spend £40 on a crap game when yiu can rent it for two days and decide if its good or not .
anyone else remembering having to take back a game like Zelda 2 knowing your saved progress was gonna get deleted. Or going to the video store on a Friday only to find out the game you wanted was rented out.😭😄
Harvest moon. Some unknown person in the neighborhood was always renting the one copy the store had, we never messed with each others saves though. It was an uneasy, unspoken truce.
There would still be one left in my city, but they had to go out of business because of the owner of the strip mall it was part of decided to raise the rent
Getting a movie on a Friday night with a pizza was special, Something you really looked forward to. Having everything at your fingertips sounds appealing but in fact it doesn't make it better.
Danbo 22 "when you have everything you appreciate nothing" for me. Our fist piece of A-$$ wouldn't mean much if it was available at the drop of a hat since birth.
Am I the only one that see the humor of Nintendo hating the rental world? A good 95% of my SNES games and all but 1 of my games for the N64 were the results of renting games from Blockbuster. A new game would come out, I'd rent it to see was it good. If I liked it, I bought it. If the game sucked, I would avoid it like the plague.
That's the whole point though, Nintendo didn't wan't you to try it they wanted you to buy it, I'm not saying that Nintendo are right or wrong but at the end of the day they are a business and any business is out to make a profit
@@benmacdonald3571 The point is that strategy is counterproductive, Without the ability to try before you buy, a lot of people avoid media they aren't sure of instead of buying it anyway,
Nintendo actually hasn't changed so much. Now they target people streaming their games as they feel like they are somehow losing money from people advertising their games.
A fair point, but also consider that some people find masochistic pleasure in playing games their favorite 'Tubers find exceptionally horrible, and will occasionally take great lengths to acquire them.
Which explains why one ex-Nintendo staffer believed the Switch could be their swan song. As seminal their games were, their business practices eventually shot themselves in the foot on the long run since their move towards game development.
I think it would be a fantastic thing if Ninty pulled a Sega and got out of hardware. Let them merge with Sony and Playstation becomes the Zelda/Mario/Metroid system. That would more or less sink whatever hope Microsoft still has of being part of the console market. Ninty stops pushing their gimmicky nonsense like semi-portability, touchscreens, dual screens and motion control and just focuses on making old school Mario, Zelda and Metroid games while using Sony's hardware. Xbox wouldn't stand a chance.
I miss Blockbuster, I didn’t rent many video games back in the day, but I did purchase a lot of second hand games in their used games bin. I bought a lot of awesome games that people for some reason didn’t want to hold on to, like Eternal Darkness and Viewtiful Joe for the GameCube, amongst other awesome little treasures.
yeah that's true. like how Nintendo just totally refused to financially bomb and begin producing third party software for Sega... But Sega sure showed them how that was done on the flip side, though. ahaha
Sega still manufactures arcade games and licenses their characters to other consoles. They left the console race after Dreamcast flopped. Sonic Mania will be released in the next couple of months.
Clearly you just watched images instead of playing the games till the end; 1993 Kirby's Adventure (NES) is one of the best games with amazing production values (Kirby has more animations than Mario, Sonic, Samus and Link combined) and one of the first games to feature an actual art direction integrated into the gameplay. Of course, the facts won't change your opinion; but that is another story.
Banter Board nvmnd. as of 2016 their trademark is expiring and a new brand will come to replace them known as "B-Store" m.cnnexpansion.com/negocios/2015/09/18/blockbuster-desaparece-en-mexico-conoce-su-nueva-imagen
+David Robles There's like two or three of them here in Cd. Juarez but I live kinda far from them so I never had the chance to go and see what they sell.
Renting games is still illegal here in Japan so people just buy used games. I’ve done it so many times and all of the games are always in very good condition.
Physical video game rentals were probably the peak of pro-consumer availability in gaming. The cost to play a game for a few days was fair but not cost-effective after. I bought so many games I would have never had if I didn’t just sample them first.
So did I understand this correctly, they wanted to ban rentals to curtail piracy?, if anything, I would imaging it would have the opposite effect. What I find funny about companies like Nintendo and Disney is that they come across as a kids friendly company and yet they are ruthless when it comes to copyrights and over protecting their stuff.
First, they fought rentals to protect sales not curtail piracy, as stated in the video, back then copying a video game was nearly impossible. Also, companies are forced by law to protect their copyrights. If you don't protect your copyright, you lose it.
Jester The Slacker Depends, when I was a kid, it was very easy to copy and get hold of any games or software we wanted even on consoles, on computers like the Amiga, it was even easier.
Greed....sums it all up.... These companies rehash the same shite out and expect you to pay for it everytime.... I hate what video games have become.... Im literally becoming kranky kong....😠😧😴😲😑
@@paul1979uk2000 not on nes it wasnt.... Unless you had a famicom disk system.... Which i highly doubt.... But let me guess....you had a unclenintendo huh!??😂😂😂
fun fact: Blockbuster was still incredibly profitable in Canada when it was dying in the US. what did Blockbuster corporate do? instead of supporting the healthy limbs in the form of Canadian stores, they gutted them and sold them off. the only thing it did was keep the US stores afloat for something like 1-2 months. now here in Canada we don't even have redboxes any more. there are now no options at all for rentals in most Canadian cities.
@@Sirdiggar Yeah I'm sure part of it was a scare tactic to just get people to do it. Couldn't say for sure as I was too busy running over to the game section to see what was in.
Unless you forked out for a Nintendo Power magazine first. Which not only gave you a better idea of what you might be buying, but also inevitably included cheat codes and hints. Also possibly a poster. I was okay with ponying out $5 for a magazine to Nintendo once a month to replace their usual "HA HA U RUSE NO WETURNS" thing, even though I was only paying the $5 because they objectively hated and feared their customers for some bizarre Nipponese reason.
I still rent video games all the time, and it doesn't cost money anymore. My local public library lets you check out video games. Everyone should check if their nearby libraries do too.
+CoinOpTV I just think this proves that Nintendo never grew with the times, they're still as tight fisted as ever, and constantly fight their fans with all their might. Look at Let's Play. Nintendo HATES Let's Play. Sony and Microsoft embraced these things, and Nintendo will only let you do it if you agree to give them the majority of the money you earn. Hell, 3rd party companies ditched Nintendo when the Playstation hit after years under strict guidelines for NES and SNES. Nintendo is tightfisted, absolutely domineering, and it's finally shot them in the foot.
Wasn't it cute back when people thought they could have property rights? The game industry has cured that now. Now, when you buy a game, you get no rights! I'm not exagerrating. I mean that. None. Read the license agreement that you click through without reading sometime. Look for some clause that obligates the game publisher to do things like let you play the game, or give you access to the game. They don't exist. They assume absolutely no legally-binding obligation to permit or enable you to play the game you "bought" (and they still illegally advertise it as "buying" a game, yet when in the courtroom are adamant that all you are doing is licensing access, not buying anything). They do reserve the right to take the game away at any moment for any or no reason, and define a slew of things you are forbidden from doing, but there isn't a single thing in the agreement that requires the game company to do anything at all. TONS of other industries tried this. Even the automobile industry claimed aftermarket parts were illegal, selling cars used was forbidden, etc. And every single time, it went to court and the industries lost. Property rights of purchasers were always enforced by the courts. Not so with videogames, though. Gamers are on the side of the game publishers. They actually BELIEVE the moronic propaganda games publishers spew claiming rentals, used sales, and things like that would harm the gaming industry. (In truth, every single time in every single industry through all history, secondhand markets and rentals MASSIVELY boost sales of new products. Consumers get used to having new products to try. They form a habit of buying new games instead of it being a rare luxury. Their friends experience more products, and provide much more of the most valuable advertising in existence - word of mouth.)
I remember about a decade ago when the music industry tried to put DRM on cd's, I remember it because I bought Megadeth's new album at the time (United Abominations) or release day and because of faulty DRM it wouldn't play on any player I had, in the end it was recalled and re-released without the drm in place.
Hammerhead547 The music industry also tried to forbid people from selling CDs used - by claiming that people were 'licensing' the music for personal use instead of buying a copy of the music, exactly like videogames do. And exactly like videogames, they claimed that since CDs didn't degrade with use over time like records or cassettes, a secondhand market would completely destroy their business. The courts told them they were being moronic and that if you sell someone something, it's theirs. They can't copy it due to copyright, but they have every right to sell it or give it away or trade it to somebody. I fully expect eventually there will be court rulings saying that companies selling digital products are required to provide the same property rights and respect the First Sale Doctrine. That almost certainly will not come from gamers challenging game publishers in court (gamers are gluttons for punishment and willing to take whatever the publishers dish out and eat it with glee, rabidly defending the rights of the publishers to abuse them and paying through the nose for it all the while) but as books and music and movies move to digital formats, more sensible media consumers are going to discover that the lack of any property rights is bullshit. Although it might take awhile because you will notice, with books, music, and movies, it is much, MUCH cheaper to buy those digitally. Whereas with games, they typically cost MORE to get in digital form (at least for titles available both in retail and digital forms). There truly is no end to how little gamers think about the purchases they make. Either that or they really are constitutionally incapable of simply not playing a neat-looking game.
MisterMercy I remember back in 2004 when Sanctuary Records tried putting DRM on their CD's. the first one they tried it with was Megadeth's The System Has Failed, unfortunately for them the DRM was defective and it wouldn't let the discs play in any player so the first pressing was recalled and re-released without the drm on it,
There were so many shitty games for the nes, snes and if one were to buy a shitty game they'd be SOL. Renting was the only way for some to play games especially if you couldn't afford them all the time. Over half the retro games I bought and own I did because I rented them years ago and remembered how fun it was.
Words cannot describe how much I miss Blockbuster. I used to love going there as a kid just to look at everything there, and would sometimes spend the better part of an hour deciding what I wanted.
I like how all Hollywood Video and Blockbuster stores around me in both Cleveland and Cincinnati still have all their signage and branding. Just empty buildings. The empty Blockbuster still has a lit sign and interior with its blue/yellow/purple paint. Creepy.
Family Video is still around unlike Blockbuster, Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery and many other chain video stores. Blockbuster still operates a small number of franchised locations (less than 15), which are no longer associated with corporate Blockbuster.
The three blockbuster's I used to go to back int he day have all had their building renovated and moved in by new companies. One's a afrocentric beauty shop, another's a bagel bros restaurant, and the last is now a mattress firm.
Man. I can't even begin to tell you how sad I felt when my childhood Blockbuster closed down. I still have my membership card somewhere. It's a rent-a-center now. 😟
In the UK we used to rent games but that quickly became obsolete when we found trade-in shops that would allow you to exchange based on what category your game was plus a standard fee (about what you'd pay for a single days rent) the game would be yours to keep and you'd end up taking it back after "Clocking" it (an expression locally used to say we completed it).
+tristan digert Like now what they did to let's player's on UA-cam and take their monetization? Yeah this is somewhat similar to battle with Blockbuster.
+tristan digert This sentence perfectly explains my biggest qualm with Nintendo. I love their games, but when it comes to legal matters I almost always completely disagree with them. I love modding games, but they can't stand people trying to enjoy their games in ways they didn't intend. I want to watch content on the internet that uses footage from their games, but they always either try to block it or take half the royalties. NINTENDO Y U DO DIS :'(
Now, if only a group of people can stop Nintendo from filing copyright claims on UA-camrs who do LPs of their games. I mean, both Sony & Microsoft are okay with them, and they're aware that most Let's Plays out there are pretty much free publicity to promote their games.
+SerialK86 Give it time. Satoru Iwata passed away in July, and he was the driving force of that policy. Slowly but surely, Nintendo will get with the times when it comes to being open to what is essentially free advertising.
TheGameRage1 Usually I wouldn't compare a video game company with a religious denomination, but as far as "all those old guys" being in charge, it works. When you say "I don't know if things will ever change with them as long as all those old guys are still in charge," there was a time you could have said the same thing about the Roman Catholic Church. By the time Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, however, just enough old guys were gone--not all of them, just the ones that were completely senile--that we went from Benedict XVI to Francis, suffice it to say! A similar kind of change will happen to Nintendo when just enough of the current board members (again, not all of them, just the ones that are completely senile) either die or resign.
I remember when I used to rent video games from Blockbuster back in my N64 years. But most of those games I rented-- I ended up buying later on, thereby doing Nintendo a favor. Among the games I rented, then bought: Super Smash Bros. Mario Party Pokémon Snap Pokémon Stadium
It's like how the music industry was scared of MP3's. Then artists learned they made more money by increasing their reach and getting that merch and ticket sale money. You might make $1 off a cd, but you could profit $30 off of a single t-shirt. It's not rocket science. Music is now a loss leader. Wait, as I write this I realize how that does not really extend to video games other than the initial thing of liking a game enough to buy it. It'll still help them but not nearly as much as the digital world helped touring bands.
Only one blockbuster remains at this current time future youth (1-25-22). Thought I would post that since the last post says it was 51 stores 3 years ago.
When Blockbuster closed down around the corner from me, Family Video swooped in and bought the building. I go in there a couple times a week and it's always packed! Video rentals are alive and well in Canada.....for now.
I remember my dad coming home from blockbuster one night with Goldeneye 007, Smash Bros, and some N64 wrestling game that I don't remember. It was magic.
Some triple-A games could be considered rentals because when the company shuts down the sever it's literally game over. That's to say nothing for the games the require a patch to even work as intended.
Video game rentals aren't as popular as it used to be. Gaming industry eventually found a way around video game rentals. Pre-order bonuses. Since pre-order bonus is usually a code associated with a person's account, it can only be redeemed once. People who like the games miss out on the bonus unless they pre-order it, which means they wouldn't rent the game otherwise. Also, digital game market, with sites like Steam or GoG, have often had sale where you can buy AAA games for $10 - $20 just a few months after release, making physical disc rentals obsolete.
This could also be the main reason as to why games back then were made to be ridiculously challenging and at often times unfair. To prevent kids who were renting these games from beating them in one rental period.
And now there are None. :( RIP Blockbuster Video, I will miss the many hours I spent walking your isles looking for the 1-2 movies my foster parents would let us rent for the weekend. I will miss sprawling out on the floor with my hands on my chin staring 2 feet away at our32 inch Tube TVs enthralled by the movie playing in the VCR. I will miss the late nights and popcorn, we still have them but they just aren't the same.
Nintendo is its own worst enemy. every time they try to do something dickish it bites them in the ass ie. forbidding devs from developing for the Sega Master system in the 80s, screwing Sony on a disk system deal(lead to the creation of the play station), fighting the game rental industry, making the n64 comparatively expensive to develop for, falsely promising the Wii U to be a return to the hardcore audience, and most recently destroying their free advertising by crushing youtubers that use their content.
Silly Nintendo, if I rented a game and really enjoyed, I would then go out and buy it after I saved up as a kid. Such purchases were Crystalis, The Gaurdian Legend, Battletoads, Metroid, Starfox, Ghostbusters (Superior Genesis version), Wonderboy in Monster World, Marvel Land, Splatterhouse 2 and 3, etc etc etc. Generally, I always bought RPGs, Mario, Sonic, Mega Man, and Zelda games but I wasn't going to waste my hard earned pennies on shit I didn't know about. TG16 games though were always blind buys and generally I was satisfied with just about everything I bought for my console.
NO! RONG ANSWER! YOU BUY GAME NOW, FURR PRICE! NO RIKE? HA HA YOU STUPID, YOU PAY AREADY! TOO BAD! BUY ANOTHEL. And to think these pompous little shits had the moral authority to take that argument to court. What a weird time to be living. If they tried that today, the Internet would eat Nintendo's balls for lunch.
Being a kid who's parents couldn't afford an NES or SNES, the few weekends that we rented one were a serious treat. But any game with saves didn't make a lot of sense unless you grinded it the entire weekend and still didn't finish it and had to start over next time.
there was no better feeling than coming home from school on Friday night and your parents saying "you want to go rent something at the video store?"
+Korvas YUP!
+Korvas That was every weekend for my family.
+Gaming Historian video stores still exist today there's a family video close to me
Flame the Fox then you are super lucky! if there were any near me I'd go to them all the time just to help support them.
Preach!!!!!!
I love that this channel doesnt try to be funny snarky or cute, just the history presented well!
Norman doesnt need to try being cute! He just is!
It's serious AVGN.
True. So many other channels try so hard.
Agreed. That's why I couldnt watch folks like ConnerTheWaffle anymore. Nice guy and good content, but the persona he gives off was just...annoying in my opinion.
Yepp.. Professional.. And on point.. Great...
I rented Mario Kart SNES like 50 times from the local rental store; I could've bought it probably twice for the amount of money that I (my mom) spent lol
thats horrible man .
69th like
were you dropped as an infant ? or was your mom ?
I did the same thing with Paper Mario for the N64 before my dad ultimately bought a copy for my birthday.
Thats true i rented alot of the same games a few times especially if it was a good game.
Rentals are good. It encourages trial and makes for a smarter future purchase. Forces Industry to make good games.
Yes, demos/trials are good. But the problem is the publisher and the devs were not getting any kind of royalty from the rentals (while other industries did or had grace periods to allow them to sell). Specially, considering the ton of people who liked the games, could buy them, but didn't, simply because they didn't want to...
@@mikeluna2026 Especially how bad those company have gotten this year. Buying Rental now is like paying your bully lunch money, the bully being the gaming company. Developer and Publisher alike.
Alvaro U. Luna they shouldn’t get shyt this is America the land of opportunity everyone takes advantages of loop holes and this is exactly what that was a loop hole
U still kinda do it now...well sort of. Like c.e.x...u can buy and return within 48hours i think..so u can play it n give it back.
In theory a company is supposed to do beta testing to different demographics to see if a product will sell on different levels of production, starting with the concept, the characters, gameplay testing and so on and so forth, so that pretty much eliminates the need for rental to do a market study, also companies like nintendo are famous for not really listening to costumer feedback and pretty much go and say "hey, here's this product, buy it if you like it, if not we simply won't produce it anymore" it's a risky tactic but hey, they've been around for nearly a century and still very healthy all things considered, so this particular issue is more complicated than you think.
Lastly a fact that couldn't be denied at the time is that video game rental did made a direct blow to the industry, movies had the revenue of ticket sales, video games didn't really the proposed "wait one year" legislation was a good half way point, maybe not a whole year but 6 months and everyone would be pretty happy.
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode! Today we are learning about Nintendo's attempt to end video game rentals.
I'm sure most of us have fond memories of going to the video store and picking out a game or movie, so enjoy the wave of nostalgia!
+Gaming Historian "Fond memories" of late fees.....
Excellent video as always Norm. I used to rent NES games back in 1991 from a local indoor market here in the UK. It was interesting to hear about the legal battles going on in the background that us kids were oblivious to back then. Thanks for sharing and for the great content as always 👍👾👌
one fond memory I had was renting Megaman 4 and beating it with my friend as we took turns playing stages
You must do a collaboration with Game Theory. And others like Innuendo Studios.
+Gaming Historian Have you ever considered having your fans do the voiceovers in your videos (eg. reading a quote from someone)? Sign me up if you ever do
God, I miss brick and mortar places. It used to be such a good time, going to the Blockbuster or the Hollywood video or the moviestop. It was a night out with the family. Mama and Daddy would get a movie for themselves and us kids would get a videogame and stay up till late trying to get as much fun out of the game as possible for the amount of days we were allowed to keep it. It was always so much fun just going to these places. Digital media is superior - yes. But it is still a shame that my kids will never know the fun of going out with the family to find that one treasure in the video store.
Reading this makes me sad. I had such great memories on Fridays after school doing this.
I miss them and cd/tape stores
Wandering huge bins of music and getting a whole album ....got so many terrible albums and games but it was great cause got alot of gems and oddities
OH WELL, Now your kids and their kids will just go online and download or order whatever they want.
Hollywood video indeed lol. That was my spot as a kid. My older brother would rent games, i'd rent some action or disney movie. Really did feel like a treat, before video on demand came
+TheVileDelinquent I feel the same way. I try to explain the whole video/game rental experience to my son, but he'll never really get it. How much fun it was just browsing the various aisles trying to decide what to get this week. Sometimes it'd take me an hour or more just to decide. Now everything's readily available at the click of a button. Convenient, yes, but I still prefer the old way of doing things. Nowadays I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want, yet rarely watch anything. It sounds cheesy, but for me the magic's just not there anymore.
I remember renting the SNES console when it first came out. It used to come inside a cool black suitcase.
Yep, it was a black case with a Blockbuster sticker on it. I remember the look of the SNES inside it when i first opened it. It had 2 huge latches you had to open and the material was bumpy.
And my dog ate the foam inside. So that's how I got my first console.
@@mikeschmidt4800 That's not a bad trick. Too bad I didn't have a dog.
@@jfalconredskins Damn they must of charged your parent triple for that console lol.
Renting games in the 90s was fierce. We had a local independent store that had all the latest releases. One weekend we got Desert Strike and it was awesome. You'd also meet friends randomly at the video store. Those were the days.
Are you gay too buddy?
@@NickIggler1969 Fellas is it gay to breathe next to your homie in the video store?
But seriously, sometimes I swear its probably easier being gay than dealing with whatever problem men seem to have with doing ANYTHING around other men.
@@Freak80MC I'm gay
10:19 I'm watching this on August 4, 2019.
Today's the 30th anniversary of that lawsuit I guess.
Yes
Nintendo: I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky Blockbusters.
nice one
And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you rental companies and your pesky copyright laws!
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!!!!!!
redboxiedoxie dooooooooooo
Blockbuster to Nintendo: FAK U!!!
If I remember correctly, Nintendo also sued the makers of the Game Genie. They weren't happy with that device but they lost that case too lol.
+Peace Walker Then again I can see where there coming from because using it is technically cheating. Even if it was a dumb decision.
tim5fl who cares if it's cheating? It doesn't affect nintendo's sales or infringe on any copyright.
Peace Walker Touche
Galoob were the makers of Game Genie. Yes the Micro Machine company.
So satisfying to see Nintendo fail at all this draconian nonsense. Hopefully they get what they have coming and go completely belly-up someday.
Wow, video game rentals are still illegal in Japan. That one blew my mind.
Japanese capitalism is considerably less competition and consumer friendly than most other nations' versions. Immense conglomerates that would be unthinkable in the US (called zaibatsu, and then keretsu) are worshiped as noble oligarchs that almost totally control and dictate the Japanese economy. High ranking executives are often appointed to critical government positions literally the day they retire, with zero oversight or approval, and nobody considers it unusual or unethical. That's precisely how the Fukushima Daiichi disaster occurred, because the nuclear oversight board was entirely composed of either former Tokyo Electric Power Company executives or others with direct financial ties to TEPCO. Corruption elevated to Asian cultural icon. "Father is always right".
sorry for wall of text, but I get really tired of hearing people talk about how progressive and enlightened Japan is compared to America or Europe. In reality, their brand of capitalism is MORE evil, if anything.
@BMT Yes,Capitalism dosen't requiere a competitive market
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III I think in general when people talk about or think Japan is "progressive" its in terms of their technological breakthroughs and robotics, NOT in terms of government.
@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III
"Immense conglomerates that would be unthinkable in the US"
That's really just laughable. A small number of massive private financial bodies have the US in their back pocket, from tech giants to the private bankers running the fed-res.
Japan was rebuilt by the US after the war; it's economic structure is merely a reflection of what the US oligarchs desire. A trial run for their own design.
Nintendo Japan actually had a direct from satellite to your system "rental" or demo thing called satelliview.
Sega has a similar thing, and a cable TV like version in the US (I could be getting the companies off here, but one of them did).
I can't get enough of these Gaming Historian videos. Amazingly well done. Thank you so much for putting such time are care into their production.
Had to look at the date of the video. "Now there are 51" heh now there are 0 Blockbusters. There's an independently owned one in Bend OR that still uses the name but BB is gone.
This is TV quality. Extremely professional documentary, keep up the amazing work.
"Today, there are only 51"
Oh dayum, this must be an old video.
Today there is only one store left. And it is in Bend, Oregon owned by a private company. Last year a woman in Sydney closed the second last store that was almost entirely funded by private donations.
@@LordZordid there is still video store in Indiana a family video that is still going with being able to rent games today its litterally right next to a little ceasar's pizza
@@sonic1135 No. That is closed as well.
@@LordZordid i know now a friend of mine told me the family video in Crawfordsville Indiana right next to the little Cesar's pizza closed down which tellls me they all did
@@sonic1135 still one in greencastle
I'm actually lived through the time of going to a store to rent movies and video games and it all seems like a very foreign concept to me now and I am very nostalgic for it
Lmaooo
I remember renting Kirby tilt and tumble from a non chain place.
Idk that it's that dramatic. But I remember it as well. Nothing felt worse than waiting until Friday to go in after school to rent a movie and then 4/5 of my top choices were out of stock. Not an issue today.
I loved rental stores. My dad did some sort of computer repair at General Electric. He had a buddy with a son and his buddy always knew how to copy games and bypass the security protections. He would even do stuff to our consoles to allow them to illegally play games. At my peak I had around 200 games and all the popular stuff only available in Japan. The Japanese games were more of a novelty as you couldn't play them for long. They didn't translate them to English because it wasn't sold for a English speaking market. Sorry about the rant but I went down memory lane watching this video.
I remember it. And while I feel that nostalgia as well I think it's better now not having to go out just to get a game or a movie. So much easier to stream.
I work at a video rental store in Nebraska called Family Video, and we still rent out video games
Yes, Family Video is a national chain. There is one near my house.
They rent out game systems too
That's awesome, and a little surprising!
How many months ago did Nebraska start getting videos and video games?
Comic Gladiator 😂
ergonaut along with the over abundance of mattress stores
wow didn't know they were still around wow
Good topic to talk about.
Should've mentioned how Nintendo eventually had a Championship through Blockbuster at one point (There's a DK-Country Blockbuster Cartridge) and there were even Blockbuster exclusive N64 games.
Blockbuster Exclusive N64 games; I don’t remember any of this at all.
I don't think the games were exclusive... They just had a BB logo thrown on it.
@@thefitgurutv clayfighter 63 and 1/3 sculptors cut
@@SharonisCarin321 Also Stunt Racer 64.
Doesn't mean they weren't still at war. Apple and Samsung sue each other yet Samsung makes parts for the iPhone. That's just how smart business is done.
Only 51 Blockbuster Video's in the country, and I can confirm 3 of those are in Anchorage, Alaska.
+Stop Skeletons From Fighting And another in Wasilla
Another 7 in the Rio Grande Valley, but 4 just closed their doors last month, now 3 left.
One in Sandy Oregon.
+Jorge Alcorta lol i work at one of them
+Jorge Alcorta lol i work at one of them
There really was a whole culture built around rental-shops. I lament that we'll never see anything like it again... =(
That's how Gamestop should operate: charge people for a subscription service where we can rent games for a certain amount of time, then we return them kinda like a library for games. Or you could outright buy the game you rented cuz you liked it.
@@KootenaiKing That's a good idea! And I'm glad you have fond memories too. Thanks! =)
@@BuckarooBanzai84 let's pass it on the Gamestop corporate. . . .
@@KootenaiKing If I figure out how, then yes. =)
this was so cool and informative! I grew up in the 90s, and never knew this war was going on behind the scenes.
There's a war going on behind every industry imaginable. Always has been, always will, and it's almost always interesting if presented well.
And to think, Blockbuster was offered Netflix for $50 million and turned them down.
BET THEY FUCKING REGRET THAT!!!
Organization inertia has killed many companies, next one to fall: department stores.
Blockbuster would have ruined Netflix. They wouldn't be the same company they are now. I'm glad BB turned down the deal.
Kenny Lopez
they wre also offred reblox netflix got the same offer
it REALLY did seem like a stupid idea at first haha
It is always comforting to know that Nintendo hasn't changed at all since then.
@@luisangelpinedabenard3829 lol you must not know about how scummy Nintendo actually is. Don't get me wrong I love the games and hardware but holy hell does that company despise their customers.
@@Milliardo__Peacecraft Nintendo isn't that bad, especially when you compare them to DIsney. Nintendo is just very very protective of their IP. Where as disney just wants to extort you and propagandize you. Nintendo just doesn't want you to pirate their games.
@@TheAdmirableAdmiral yeahhhh that's not true all they care about is making a buck and they finally found their maker when emulators popped up all over and they knew they couldn't prosecute everyone so the decided to pull money from direct consumers. Nintendo is on top and everyone knows it, but they are shit as well. I mean come on the rental business was proven to create more wealth for video games considering how long campaigns tooke to complete. Rentals hooked gamers into actually buying a game they wouldn't have bought in the first place. Nintendo as a company sucks the video games are great tho imo!
@@Milliardo__Peacecraft but Nintendo was right here. Some wrongs done don't make everything you've done as wrong.
white people stealing from asian IP again and again and being hypocritical about it lmao
I remember the times in the early 2000’s when rental store were selling their inventories, you could get your dose of nes, super nes and others for dirt cheap
Not quite the same as games, but I remember when my local blockbuster closed in 2004 and my mam brought home maybe 40 Disney movies all for really cheap!!! Was the best day ever when I was a kid lol
These videos are so refined and academic, I feel like I should be watching them on a CRT on top of a cart. Good job cheers.
Dude your videos are so relaxing to watch, thanks for your channel
INeverWanted2010 so true the music on the ESRB vid almost made me cry of relaxation
They fought a long legal battle. Ironically, their best fight against rentals was actually making long RPG's that took a while to complete.
Nintendo sueing? Shocker
I bought my first nes game from a rental store.....it was FF1....😎
How is that ironic?
Learn the definition of irony
It made games really hard as well.
Man I miss going out on Friday w/GF to rent a movie at Blockbuster or Hollywood. Fun times.
always used to chuckle when walking past the adult movies
Mike Durant LoL
the closest i ever got to a N64 is my dad renting the entire console from blockbuster with mario 64 for 3 days.... i remember waking up at 6am just to play lololol
😢
man it was so cool you could rent an entire console.
@@haamishmcgarry you said it best!
The history of my Life ...
Sad story
Never knew this. Quite incredible actually. And now there is only 1 Blockbuster left
Alluh akbar
don't feel sorry for them. they killed the mom n pops that had better quality movies
8,999 stores, all gone!
I visited the Bend location last year, it was like walking back in time. There were a handful of tourists when we were there, but I still spotted some locals actually renting movies.
Love this channel! The one comment at the end of the video “but video rental lives on in the form of Redbox…” 😂
For a man that '"didn't like lawyers", Yamauchi sure liked lawsuits a lot 🤔
Nintendo loves money more than they hate lawyers
@@trucy1337 Nintendo loves money more then anything. I'm so sick of hearing people say "Nintendo loves their customers", No Nintendo loves their customers money.
@Diabeto Kills I'm not even saying that it's wrong for a company to love money. That's how a company works! All video game companies love their customers money more than the customer. They would be out of business if they didn't.
Like every big company ever ? Why should they care about anything else
@@TheSP33DFREAK Who know who loves their customers?
SEGA.
Where did that get them?
Anyone else thinking digital rentals is bullshit?
If I'm looking for a particularly old movie and maybe less popular movie, I have to filter through like 3-4 services before I can find it, and then its something ridiculous like a $10 rental.
Then I realize torrent is free...
EDIT: Also try your public libraries if you want to recreate the video rental feel. My library has some really awesome old VHS & DVD selection.
This is why people still hold onto physical media. Streaming and rental services are great. But they don't release everything on other formats. I still have DVDs that they never released for Blu Ray or digital. I have VHS tapes for the same reason. Once they release it to the next format, I get it. But there are so many good movies and shows out there that these studios own but won't do anything with them. The only way to have it is to of owned it when it first came out and then you're SoL any other time. The studios only mainly focus on the blockbusters that made them money instead of investing in small runs of their other obscure stuff.
@@unitedhybrid187 Actually pretty sad, because I found so many obscure movies and cult classic back when our local rental stores were still around... some of these locally owned ones had VHS and DVDs jammed in every nook and cranny of their stores, like library. A lot of those old videos are hard to find online, and usually not through kosher methods of obtaining them.
No. It's no different than physical rentals... except you don't have to get off your ass and drive to the store.
True
@@unitedhybrid187 The best places to find those rare VHS tapes and DVDs online include Amazon, eBay and ShopGoodwill.com.
What I loved about Blockbuster was the chance to try out video games that I might asked for Birthday or Christmas. Without Blockbuster or retail stores I might not had the chance to experience many games or barely have many at all… 😢
Video games are a form of child abuse. It looks like you got your fair share son.
I had no idea music rental shops existed. The first time I knew you could rent music -- well, it was Spotify.
Philip Zamora
Isn't Spotify more like a Flatrate for Streaming and temporary Downloads ?
Public Library?
In Germany it is still perfectly legal for Libraries to rental Music CDs.
Some public libraries have CDs for costumers to rent.
you can rent CD's from public libraries for free
I feel like movie and video game rentals were a very family/friend oriented occasion. I remember getting together with my friends every week deciding who was going to rent what games and movies, then deciding who’s house the sleep over was going to be at. Then spending the entire night watching movies and playing games and sleeping the entire next day. Loved when it got dark early and sunrise was late. Just more time to get no sleep playing games and watching movies.
A good friend was at a mom & pop video store that was going out of business. He bought every game they had (Which was nes & snes) with boxes, instructions & the games in pristine condition. Box upon box of shrinkwrapped nes & snes games. It was incredible to see.
So when this video was made 3 years ago there were 51 Blockbusters stores left, now there's only one :(
And they have no plans of closing.
I didn't even know they still exist
KhrisCell, sorry... Even before you typed this that Oregon location (believe was S of Portland in a small town downtown) has been CLOSED FOR MONTHS (late '18-early '19). That was THE LAST FRANCHISED BLOCKBUSTER in existence worldwide (others outside of US changed their names already and the US corporate ones closed several years ago).
@@syxepop 😥
Shame the last two here in Alaska shut down. Here in Alaska, it’s one of the few areas where rentals are still going due to the problem with streaming.
When our Blockbuster went out of business, my buddy bought it and runs it as a locally owned store. He still does great to this day renting movies and games.
to people who dont have internet or access to a library?
your buddy also said he had a 3 some with a blow up doll and a rubber assth
A store being profitable to a corporation and to an individual are two completely different things.
So Blockbuster is still kinda alive? ok.
wow that's rare!
these were merely because if a game was garbage, a person would find that out when renting it, then the devs wouldn't get a profit because no one would want to buy their bad games, it was only to protect terrible programmers, because if a game is actually good, the costumer would go out and get their own copy instead of wasting all that money renting it repeatedly
I don't think Nintendo was aware of that. It seems like they still don't with the whole LP thing.
First Nintendo I bought was from blockbuster in that metal case. That new foam and plastic smell still is one of the best memories I've ever had as a kid.
miss the feeling going to the rental store with my dad
I remember when Blockbuster in the UK started doing game rentals, it was nearly entirely EA games on the Mega Drive (Genesis), virtually nothing else... stuff like Sword of Sodan, Budokai, Dark Castle and James Pond.
I know EA produced their own carts, so maybe they did a deal with Blockbusters before anyone else. :S Interesting.
Love you Larry!
+Larry Bundy Jr Dark Castle? I'm truly sorry
Nathan Justice
I rented Sword of Sodan. That was bad enough!!!
Back when EA were good
And now BB is no more. Just an independently owned store in Bend OR that uses the name but they have to buy everything retail themselves. Looks more like they're making money selling merchandise by branding themselves as the last Blockbuster.
I love watching your show! I feel like I'm watching a legit PBS show. I have a love for games and this really helps me reflect on the games that I loved so much
Nintendo has always been behind the times; I especially love the fact that Saga was making marketing deals while Nintendo was suing everyone... even today. There wasn't any free trials, demos or UA-cam back then, so the only way to trial a game was to rent it or if you were lucky, you knew someone who owned it. Most games I rented, I ended up purchasing.
Nintendo used to really fuck over people who maybe youtube videos based off Nintendo games. Thank god they stopped.
Nintendo are modern day DickTurpin😂 . Always taking someone to court to fir one thing or another . Hardware prices never really drop, they don't make any loss on their products unlike Sony and Xbox . I also liked to rent games then I would purchase the ones I liked . Bit like Games Pass now for me , why spend £40 on a crap game when yiu can rent it for two days and decide if its good or not .
And who’s bigger now?
@@Rspsand07 Not Nintendo.
*Meanwhile, at the Legion Of Doom....*
"Hello, you have called Nintendo's Legal Office".....
"WHAAAAT A RUUUSHHHH!!!..."
Blockbuster to Nintendo: FAK U!!!
anyone else remembering having to take back a game like Zelda 2 knowing your saved progress was gonna get deleted. Or going to the video store on a Friday only to find out the game you wanted was rented out.😭😄
Mhmm~
too many times...
what if tbey had a couple ofnthe same game and gave u the one without the save and you tbought it was erased 😂
On the other hand, you might get a cartridge where someone had already beaten the game!
Harvest moon. Some unknown person in the neighborhood was always renting the one copy the store had, we never messed with each others saves though. It was an uneasy, unspoken truce.
What's really surprising is that there are 51 stores left.
There are only 12 left, google it.
probably at Alaska, but lot of them is just individual store that doesnt bother tp change their name
One of them (Cardiff, NSW, Australia) only just closed in 2018!
Not anymore. Last I heard they were down to one. Not sure if even that is still around or not.
There would still be one left in my city, but they had to go out of business because of the owner of the strip mall it was part of decided to raise the rent
Getting a movie on a Friday night with a pizza was special, Something you really looked forward to.
Having everything at your fingertips sounds appealing but in fact it doesn't make it better.
Honestly, there's such a thing as TOO MUCH choice. When you can have everything, you want nothing.
Danbo 22 "when you have everything you appreciate nothing" for me.
Our fist piece of A-$$ wouldn't mean much if it was available at the drop of a hat since birth.
Am I the only one that see the humor of Nintendo hating the rental world? A good 95% of my SNES games and all but 1 of my games for the N64 were the results of renting games from Blockbuster. A new game would come out, I'd rent it to see was it good. If I liked it, I bought it. If the game sucked, I would avoid it like the plague.
That's the whole point though, Nintendo didn't wan't you to try it they wanted you to buy it, I'm not saying that Nintendo are right or wrong but at the end of the day they are a business and any business is out to make a profit
@@benmacdonald3571 The point is that strategy is counterproductive, Without the ability to try before you buy, a lot of people avoid media they aren't sure of instead of buying it anyway,
Fascinating topic! I wasn't aware of this. Great work as always, Norm!
Nintendo actually hasn't changed so much. Now they target people streaming their games as they feel like they are somehow losing money from people advertising their games.
I heard only certified streamers and reviewers could use game-play of Nintendo game, although im not sure.
A fair point, but also consider that some people find masochistic pleasure in playing games their favorite 'Tubers find exceptionally horrible, and will occasionally take great lengths to acquire them.
"This game is a piece of shit" is "free advertising" for LJN.
Which explains why one ex-Nintendo staffer believed the Switch could be their swan song. As seminal their games were, their business practices eventually shot themselves in the foot on the long run since their move towards game development.
I think it would be a fantastic thing if Ninty pulled a Sega and got out of hardware. Let them merge with Sony and Playstation becomes the Zelda/Mario/Metroid system. That would more or less sink whatever hope Microsoft still has of being part of the console market. Ninty stops pushing their gimmicky nonsense like semi-portability, touchscreens, dual screens and motion control and just focuses on making old school Mario, Zelda and Metroid games while using Sony's hardware. Xbox wouldn't stand a chance.
I miss Blockbuster, I didn’t rent many video games back in the day, but I did purchase a lot of second hand games in their used games bin. I bought a lot of awesome games that people for some reason didn’t want to hold on to, like Eternal Darkness and Viewtiful Joe for the GameCube, amongst other awesome little treasures.
Blockbuster: *dies due to internet popularity*
Nintendo: "This... does put a smile on my face"
*asks Nintendo* And what did it cost?
\\officialhedgeandahog // everything - Thano
but now it costs way more to fix DVDs since Blockbuster is gone...
I know this is a meme, but Nintendo actually partnered with blockbuster multiple times during the n64 era
Blockbuster was offered to buy a up and coming conpany called...NETFLIX....they weren't interested.....uh dumb move blockbuster
A trip to blockbuster on Friday during the summer as a kid was everything.
Sega does Nintendon't wasn't just their ad slogan. They really did do everything Nintendo would not.
yeah that's true. like how Nintendo just totally refused to financially bomb and begin producing third party software for Sega... But Sega sure showed them how that was done on the flip side, though. ahaha
Rivalry is good for the consumer. Imagine Nintendo uncontested in the 80's and 90's.
ManhwaFan Sega is a dead company.
Sega still manufactures arcade games and licenses their characters to other consoles. They left the console race after Dreamcast flopped. Sonic Mania will be released in the next couple of months.
Clearly you just watched images instead of playing the games till the end;
1993 Kirby's Adventure (NES) is one of the best games with amazing production values (Kirby has more animations than Mario, Sonic, Samus and Link combined) and one of the first games to feature an actual art direction integrated into the gameplay.
Of course, the facts won't change your opinion; but that is another story.
I love the wording that was used by the lawyers. It's always so beautifully said to tell their clients story. LOL
Blockbuster is still alive and well in Mexico. you can rent ps4 games and all
Interesting
Banter Board nvmnd. as of 2016 their trademark is expiring and a new brand will come to replace them known as "B-Store" m.cnnexpansion.com/negocios/2015/09/18/blockbuster-desaparece-en-mexico-conoce-su-nueva-imagen
+David Robles There's like two or three of them here in Cd. Juarez but I live kinda far from them so I never had the chance to go and see what they sell.
También van a morir las 'B stores' tienen el mismo concepto de blockbuster, aqui en monterrey ya cerraron una un mes después de cambiarle el nombre
+David Robles that must be were the 51 stores are cant find one in america
Great idea for a video. As a kid, I could afford to buy any games so when my stores started carrying games to rent it was a dream come true.
Renting games is still illegal here in Japan so people just buy used games. I’ve done it so many times and all of the games are always in very good condition.
Physical video game rentals were probably the peak of pro-consumer availability in gaming. The cost to play a game for a few days was fair but not cost-effective after. I bought so many games I would have never had if I didn’t just sample them first.
I always wondered where Eddie Munster ended up at. Great channel congrats Eddie.
So did I understand this correctly, they wanted to ban rentals to curtail piracy?, if anything, I would imaging it would have the opposite effect.
What I find funny about companies like Nintendo and Disney is that they come across as a kids friendly company and yet they are ruthless when it comes to copyrights and over protecting their stuff.
First, they fought rentals to protect sales not curtail piracy, as stated in the video, back then copying a video game was nearly impossible. Also, companies are forced by law to protect their copyrights. If you don't protect your copyright, you lose it.
Jester The Slacker Depends, when I was a kid, it was very easy to copy and get hold of any games or software we wanted even on consoles, on computers like the Amiga, it was even easier.
Money corrupts everything my friend
Greed....sums it all up....
These companies rehash the same shite out and expect you to pay for it everytime....
I hate what video games have become....
Im literally becoming kranky kong....😠😧😴😲😑
@@paul1979uk2000 not on nes it wasnt....
Unless you had a famicom disk system....
Which i highly doubt....
But let me guess....you had a unclenintendo huh!??😂😂😂
fun fact: Blockbuster was still incredibly profitable in Canada when it was dying in the US. what did Blockbuster corporate do? instead of supporting the healthy limbs in the form of Canadian stores, they gutted them and sold them off. the only thing it did was keep the US stores afloat for something like 1-2 months.
now here in Canada we don't even have redboxes any more. there are now no options at all for rentals in most Canadian cities.
Wish we could all go back to those days for a little while
simpler times
Yea man I miss those days. Renting a VHS tape then getting home and having to rewind it because the previous person didn't rewind it 🙈
@@Sirdiggar some of the places I remember charged you a fee if you returned it without being rewound, but what animal would do such a thing?
@@joshcunningham8780 Wow really? Never knew of any places that did that here in the UK. Not to mention getting away with it
@@Sirdiggar Yeah I'm sure part of it was a scare tactic to just get people to do it. Couldn't say for sure as I was too busy running over to the game section to see what was in.
This is fascinating. I always wondered why games switched to those game case printed instructions instead of booklets.
Back when the game you rented was almost always chosen based on the cover art!
better than back in the 80s and only being able to BUY a game based on the cover art. wow did we bring home a lot of garbage back then for full price
Unless you forked out for a Nintendo Power magazine first. Which not only gave you a better idea of what you might be buying, but also inevitably included cheat codes and hints. Also possibly a poster.
I was okay with ponying out $5 for a magazine to Nintendo once a month to replace their usual "HA HA U RUSE NO WETURNS" thing, even though I was only paying the $5 because they objectively hated and feared their customers for some bizarre Nipponese reason.
Yup that sounds like Nintendo alright. I'll always love their games, but they annoy me as a company.
Mangia1432 ... selfish and immoral
123lowp I fail to see how it's immoral, but selfish is accurate.
123lowp thats why they are slowly dying today
charger master Shut up.
Markell Hawthorne ooh yeah your the only one here argument about a topic 30 years ago move on
I still rent video games all the time, and it doesn't cost money anymore. My local public library lets you check out video games. Everyone should check if their nearby libraries do too.
It blows my mind that there are still 51 Blockbusters lol
+WrecklessEating Right, I was expecting Norm would say there was something like 3 of them left haha.
+WrecklessEating But they're mostly franchised locations in Texas and Alaska.
Right now, there is only one in the U.S. Oh, how times change :(
ahhhh good ole nintendo always fighting the american way!
Nintendo is a Japanese company fighting the American way.
+fresh red scarves my body is Reggie! (I'm sorry I just had to)
You know it.
+CoinOpTV I just think this proves that Nintendo never grew with the times, they're still as tight fisted as ever, and constantly fight their fans with all their might. Look at Let's Play. Nintendo HATES Let's Play. Sony and Microsoft embraced these things, and Nintendo will only let you do it if you agree to give them the majority of the money you earn. Hell, 3rd party companies ditched Nintendo when the Playstation hit after years under strict guidelines for NES and SNES. Nintendo is tightfisted, absolutely domineering, and it's finally shot them in the foot.
+RecklessFire29 Third parties were fucking estatic to leave Nintendo.
I was Blockbuster CEO from 86 to 89. Blockbuster employees consider those the Golden Years.
Did your offices ever get hit by RPGs?
Brian Williams I bet you're upset that Blockbuster isn't around anymore
I gotta job for you I know it's hard being unemployed
Derp statement right there
It's so cool to see your videos progress over the years, awesome job!
Wasn't it cute back when people thought they could have property rights? The game industry has cured that now. Now, when you buy a game, you get no rights! I'm not exagerrating. I mean that. None. Read the license agreement that you click through without reading sometime. Look for some clause that obligates the game publisher to do things like let you play the game, or give you access to the game. They don't exist. They assume absolutely no legally-binding obligation to permit or enable you to play the game you "bought" (and they still illegally advertise it as "buying" a game, yet when in the courtroom are adamant that all you are doing is licensing access, not buying anything). They do reserve the right to take the game away at any moment for any or no reason, and define a slew of things you are forbidden from doing, but there isn't a single thing in the agreement that requires the game company to do anything at all.
TONS of other industries tried this. Even the automobile industry claimed aftermarket parts were illegal, selling cars used was forbidden, etc. And every single time, it went to court and the industries lost. Property rights of purchasers were always enforced by the courts. Not so with videogames, though. Gamers are on the side of the game publishers. They actually BELIEVE the moronic propaganda games publishers spew claiming rentals, used sales, and things like that would harm the gaming industry. (In truth, every single time in every single industry through all history, secondhand markets and rentals MASSIVELY boost sales of new products. Consumers get used to having new products to try. They form a habit of buying new games instead of it being a rare luxury. Their friends experience more products, and provide much more of the most valuable advertising in existence - word of mouth.)
I remember about a decade ago when the music industry tried to put DRM on cd's, I remember it because I bought Megadeth's new album at the time (United Abominations) or release day and because of faulty DRM it wouldn't play on any player I had, in the end it was recalled and re-released without the drm in place.
That's why I torrented The Sims 4. EA is the embodiment of all that's wrong with the industry.
Hammerhead547 The music industry also tried to forbid people from selling CDs used - by claiming that people were 'licensing' the music for personal use instead of buying a copy of the music, exactly like videogames do. And exactly like videogames, they claimed that since CDs didn't degrade with use over time like records or cassettes, a secondhand market would completely destroy their business. The courts told them they were being moronic and that if you sell someone something, it's theirs.
They can't copy it due to copyright, but they have every right to sell it or give it away or trade it to somebody. I fully expect eventually there will be court rulings saying that companies selling digital products are required to provide the same property rights and respect the First Sale Doctrine. That almost certainly will not come from gamers challenging game publishers in court (gamers are gluttons for punishment and willing to take whatever the publishers dish out and eat it with glee, rabidly defending the rights of the publishers to abuse them and paying through the nose for it all the while) but as books and music and movies move to digital formats, more sensible media consumers are going to discover that the lack of any property rights is bullshit. Although it might take awhile because you will notice, with books, music, and movies, it is much, MUCH cheaper to buy those digitally. Whereas with games, they typically cost MORE to get in digital form (at least for titles available both in retail and digital forms). There truly is no end to how little gamers think about the purchases they make. Either that or they really are constitutionally incapable of simply not playing a neat-looking game.
remember when Sony secretly installed viruses on their CDs that would infect your computer if you tried copying them? man. good times.
MisterMercy
I remember back in 2004 when Sanctuary Records tried putting DRM on their CD's. the first one they tried it with was Megadeth's The System Has Failed, unfortunately for them the DRM was defective and it wouldn't let the discs play in any player so the first pressing was recalled and re-released without the drm on it,
There were so many shitty games for the nes, snes and if one were to buy a shitty game they'd be SOL. Renting was the only way for some to play games especially if you couldn't afford them all the time. Over half the retro games I bought and own I did because I rented them years ago and remembered how fun it was.
R.i.p Hollywood Video & Blockbuster
Words cannot describe how much I miss Blockbuster. I used to love going there as a kid just to look at everything there, and would sometimes spend the better part of an hour deciding what I wanted.
I like how all Hollywood Video and Blockbuster stores around me in both Cleveland and Cincinnati still have all their signage and branding. Just empty buildings.
The empty Blockbuster still has a lit sign and interior with its blue/yellow/purple paint.
Creepy.
Family Video is still around unlike Blockbuster, Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery and many other chain video stores. Blockbuster still operates a small number of franchised locations (less than 15), which are no longer associated with corporate Blockbuster.
The three blockbuster's I used to go to back int he day have all had their building renovated and moved in by new companies. One's a afrocentric beauty shop, another's a bagel bros restaurant, and the last is now a mattress firm.
There were still 51 blockbusters when this was released
Never knew this. Glad I stumbled on your UA-cam page.
2019 and only 1 blockbuster left
Noah Paulette 2020: .... and then there where none :’(
Man. I can't even begin to tell you how sad I felt when my childhood Blockbuster closed down. I still have my membership card somewhere.
It's a rent-a-center now. 😟
In the UK we used to rent games but that quickly became obsolete when we found trade-in shops that would allow you to exchange based on what category your game was plus a standard fee (about what you'd pay for a single days rent) the game would be yours to keep and you'd end up taking it back after "Clocking" it (an expression locally used to say we completed it).
Exactly. A lot of kids did this back in the day.
How very much like nintendo to attack something they barely understand at the slightest sign of lost profits.
this
skylineGT ...is that ice cold
+tristan digert yes but fucking true
+tristan digert Like now what they did to let's player's on UA-cam and take their monetization? Yeah this is somewhat similar to battle with Blockbuster.
+tristan digert This sentence perfectly explains my biggest qualm with Nintendo. I love their games, but when it comes to legal matters I almost always completely disagree with them. I love modding games, but they can't stand people trying to enjoy their games in ways they didn't intend. I want to watch content on the internet that uses footage from their games, but they always either try to block it or take half the royalties. NINTENDO Y U DO DIS :'(
Now, if only a group of people can stop Nintendo from filing copyright claims on UA-camrs who do LPs of their games.
I mean, both Sony & Microsoft are okay with them, and they're aware that most Let's Plays out there are pretty much free publicity to promote their games.
+SerialK86 Give it time. Satoru Iwata passed away in July, and he was the driving force of that policy. Slowly but surely, Nintendo will get with the times when it comes to being open to what is essentially free advertising.
TheGameRage1
Usually I wouldn't compare a video game company with a religious denomination, but as far as "all those old guys" being in charge, it works. When you say "I don't know if things will ever change with them as long as all those old guys are still in charge," there was a time you could have said the same thing about the Roman Catholic Church. By the time Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, however, just enough old guys were gone--not all of them, just the ones that were completely senile--that we went from Benedict XVI to Francis, suffice it to say! A similar kind of change will happen to Nintendo when just enough of the current board members (again, not all of them, just the ones that are completely senile) either die or resign.
I remember when I used to rent video games from Blockbuster back in my N64 years. But most of those games I rented-- I ended up buying later on, thereby doing Nintendo a favor.
Among the games I rented, then bought:
Super Smash Bros.
Mario Party
Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Stadium
It's like how the music industry was scared of MP3's. Then artists learned they made more money by increasing their reach and getting that merch and ticket sale money. You might make $1 off a cd, but you could profit $30 off of a single t-shirt. It's not rocket science. Music is now a loss leader. Wait, as I write this I realize how that does not really extend to video games other than the initial thing of liking a game enough to buy it. It'll still help them but not nearly as much as the digital world helped touring bands.
Most rented NES games. The vast majority were garbage so it was nice to not actually buy them. If one was great the I would but it.
Only one blockbuster remains at this current time future youth (1-25-22).
Thought I would post that since the last post says it was 51 stores 3 years ago.
When Blockbuster closed down around the corner from me, Family Video swooped in and bought the building. I go in there a couple times a week and it's always packed! Video rentals are alive and well in Canada.....for now.
ryanjwebb
Over one year late, how it that store going now?
Here in Indiana, USA I see them all over and actually just rented some games from there
Hard to imagine a time when there was piracy before the internet, and blockbuster making a profit.
it wasnt about piracy. it was about sales.
there was piracy at that time, but Blockbuster hadn't anything to do with that (yes, pirated cartridges).
It was awesome when you'd open up a case and the manual was still there
In Sweden, we had library video game rentals that were completely free back in the 2000s.
I remember my dad coming home from blockbuster one night with Goldeneye 007, Smash Bros, and some N64 wrestling game that I don't remember. It was magic.
I remember walking in blockbuster first time and it felt like a video library museum. It was epic
Some triple-A games could be considered rentals because when the company shuts down the sever it's literally game over. That's to say nothing for the games the require a patch to even work as intended.
Digital games are literally rentals.
It's a license to play the game. That's it. And when the servers are abandoned so is your game
@ergonaut Also abortions on drink coasters such as THPS 5.
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.
Thank u for improving my gaming knowlage even more than what it is keep it up man I learned so much watching u
Video game rentals aren't as popular as it used to be. Gaming industry eventually found a way around video game rentals. Pre-order bonuses.
Since pre-order bonus is usually a code associated with a person's account, it can only be redeemed once. People who like the games miss out on the bonus unless they pre-order it, which means they wouldn't rent the game otherwise.
Also, digital game market, with sites like Steam or GoG, have often had sale where you can buy AAA games for $10 - $20 just a few months after release, making physical disc rentals obsolete.
That also hurt the used game market
This could also be the main reason as to why games back then were made to be ridiculously challenging and at often times unfair. To prevent kids who were renting these games from beating them in one rental period.
The difficulty also reflects arcade gaming culture. The thought was to have games eat as many quarters as possible if you wanted to beat it.
I know the Lion King video game was definitely designed with that in mind
And now there are None. :( RIP Blockbuster Video, I will miss the many hours I spent walking your isles looking for the 1-2 movies my foster parents would let us rent for the weekend. I will miss sprawling out on the floor with my hands on my chin staring 2 feet away at our32 inch Tube TVs enthralled by the movie playing in the VCR. I will miss the late nights and popcorn, we still have them but they just aren't the same.
Nintendo is its own worst enemy. every time they try to do something dickish it bites them in the ass ie. forbidding devs from developing for the Sega Master system in the 80s, screwing Sony on a disk system deal(lead to the creation of the play station), fighting the game rental industry, making the n64 comparatively expensive to develop for, falsely promising the Wii U to be a return to the hardcore audience, and most recently destroying their free advertising by crushing youtubers that use their content.
+Golden Grenadier Now this.
kotaku.com/nintendo-deletes-every-stage-by-prominent-mario-maker-s-1766213101
Nintendo for some reason has gotten monstrously anti consumer which is why I've switched to PC.
+Golden Grenadier this is so true lmao
Nintendo is actually innocent in its partnership in the Sony Super CD add on.
Sony is the guilty one.
Tornado1994 how so? I know Sony's the devil since it killed our beloved Sega but Nintendo has to at least take some blame for the mess.
Thanks, Gaming Historian. You're informative as always.
Silly Nintendo, if I rented a game and really enjoyed, I would then go out and buy it after I saved up as a kid. Such purchases were Crystalis, The Gaurdian Legend, Battletoads, Metroid, Starfox, Ghostbusters (Superior Genesis version), Wonderboy in Monster World, Marvel Land, Splatterhouse 2 and 3, etc etc etc.
Generally, I always bought RPGs, Mario, Sonic, Mega Man, and Zelda games but I wasn't going to waste my hard earned pennies on shit I didn't know about. TG16 games though were always blind buys and generally I was satisfied with just about everything I bought for my console.
NO! RONG ANSWER! YOU BUY GAME NOW, FURR PRICE!
NO RIKE? HA HA YOU STUPID, YOU PAY AREADY! TOO BAD! BUY ANOTHEL.
And to think these pompous little shits had the moral authority to take that argument to court. What a weird time to be living. If they tried that today, the Internet would eat Nintendo's balls for lunch.
Being a kid who's parents couldn't afford an NES or SNES, the few weekends that we rented one were a serious treat. But any game with saves didn't make a lot of sense unless you grinded it the entire weekend and still didn't finish it and had to start over next time.