Wal-Mart to test E-Play game kiosks
PHYSICAL: In pilot, machines buy trade-ins and rent games, DVDs
By Danny King — Video Business, 5/18/2009
MAY 18 | PHYSICAL: Wal-Mart might be considering a challenge to specialty videogame retailer GameStop, if a new test of self-service kiosks that allow for videogame rentals and trade-ins as well as DVD rentals is any indication.
Kiosk operator E-Play, based in Columbus, Ohio, will install machines at 77 Wal-Marts in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island by the end of the month. Most of those stores don’t have machines operated by Coinstar’s Redbox unit, the U.S. DVD-kiosk leader that agreed last year to install its machines in most of Wal-Mart’s 3,600 U.S. stores.
In addition to offering $1-a-night DVD rentals like kiosk leader Redbox, the E-Play machines will let users turn in Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation games in exchange for credit on their credit cards, the companies said. The E-Play kiosks, which can hold about 4,000 movie and game discs, pay as much as $25 for a copy of a high-demand game such as Resident Evil 5 or as little as 50¢ for older titles, E-Play CEO Alan Rudy said. He noted that the DVD-rental function will be turned off on machines that share stores with Redbox kiosks.
“The Redbox machine does not sell games or allow for trade-ins,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien, who added that the company hadn’t made plans to install more E-Play machines beyond the pilot program. “We’re interested because of the added convenience of games in these units. It provides a great competitive price for games.”
Last July, NCR, the world’s largest automated-teller machine maker, bought a minority stake in E-Play in an agreement that the companies said would add several thousand DVD-trading self-service machines in GameStop and Dollar Tree stores as well as other U.S. retailers within the next few years. E-Play, which doesn’t disclose total units, also has machines in some Wal-Mart stores in Canada.
Although E-Play’s Wal-Mart machines will have the same blue-and-yellow colors as Wal-Mart stores, they won’t have a Wal-Mart logo on them, and they’ll be owned and operated by E-Play. The kiosks will charge $1 a night for both DVD rentals and game titles, and $2 for the first night for Blu-ray titles and $1 for each night thereafter.
“There’s a big difference between what we’re providing and other DVD rental kiosks,” said Rudy. “We hope there’s going to be a broader rollout.”
Redbox to increase kiosks in Circle K stores
PHYSICAL: Machines already in California, Arizona convenience stores
By Danny King — Video Business, 5/20/2009
MAY 20 | PHYSICAL: Redbox is adding more kiosks in Circle K convenience stores as part of its plan to boost its machine count by at least a third within the next eight months, the largest U.S. operator of movie-rental kiosks said today.
Redbox, which is owned by coin-exchange machine maker Coinstar, already has machines at Circle K stores in California, Arizona and Ohio. Redbox isn’t disclosing how many machines it has in Circle K stores, how many it will add or where they’ll be added. Circle K has more than 3,000 U.S. stores.
Redbox has led growth in the U.S. kiosk industry, which is expected to expand over the next few years as video store chains such as Blockbuster and Movie Gallery close underperforming stores. The company, which almost doubled its machine count last year, had 15,400 kiosks at the end of March and plans to have between 20,000 and 22,000 machines by the end of the year.
Coinstar said earlier this month that first-quarter sales from Redbox and the far-smaller DVDXpress brands jumped 156% to $154.7 million from $60.5 million a year earlier. Earnings, excluding some costs, for Coinstar’s DVD operations grew to $29.1 million, as Redbox boosted same-store sales by more than 30% from a year earlier and added 1,700 machines during the quarter.
