14 DAY TRIAL // Wal-Mart has announced that it has begun lending space in its stores to a third-party company, called E-Play, which runs automated kiosks for the purpose of implementing 77 “Video Game Buyback” stations. Only 2% of the stores that Wal-Mart operates in the United States will get a kiosk as part of a pilot program.
Apparently, the automated kiosk can loan a customer a DVD or a videogame for the Wii, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation home console for the price of 1 dollar per day but they can also take in game discs that someone might want to sell.
Talking to Gamasutra, Kristen Fox, who is the vice president for marketing and business development at E-Play, explained the process. It seems that someone looking to sell a videogame must scan the game's case on the machine. This will get it to display a price that the seller can accept or not.
He/She then needs to introduce the disc in the machine and wait for it to be authenticated. Details from a credit card and driver's license will need to be introduced and credit will be delivered to the credit card in a few days. Apparently, you can get 14 dollars for a game that is still in demand, such as Madden NFL 09.
E-Play says that it is reviewing the prices it offers quite regularly. E-Play has not said whether the games that its machines rent out are of the used games variety and has not detailed what it plans to do with the used games it receives.
Currently, GameStop is no longer the single player in the used games business. Best Buy announced that it would begin accepting used games and would even sell them in some select sores, while Toys'R'Us is also interested in getting into the business. Even the online giant Amazon revealed that customers could send used games that would be sold online afterwards.