The marketing scheme portrayed in the article is valid. However, I could see renting a game to decide if its worth buying, and my decision will be made in less than 4 hours so I have little interest in renting it for a week.
I could also see a gaming party where we rent 3 or 4 games and see what we think as a group. Again my interest would be in minimization of total spend, not optimization of hourly cost. Obviously the lowest hourly cost would be poker night or go on a hike and picnic.
Also, for an article only two months old, Amazon reports I can buy the game new with free prime shipping for $17.99 which makes the "rent 90 days for $30" rather odd, because less than 60 days later I could buy the game for about half the rental cost.
since the xbox, and passing trhu the app store (e.g. FTL is 9.99 drm free for 3 platforms, vs appstore 9.99 for a single device). everyone with half a brain knows buying online is never the best option. xbox FPS games are around $20 on target and the like. buying on the live network it is $59.99.
>Also, for an article only two months old, Amazon reports I can buy the game new with free prime shipping for $17.99 which makes the "rent 90 days for $30" rather odd, because less than 60 days later I could buy the game for about half the rental cost.
The PS Now works on PS4 and PS Vita among other things. The game you will buy for 17.99 will only work on PS3.
Even those who think "I'd decide if I want to buy the game in less than 4 hours" are also likely to think "it's only 2 bucks more to have it for a week" and try to use that as a hedge against the likely scenario of wanting to play a little bit more, but not liking the game enough to buy. It's very rare to find someone who would pick the 4 hour decision as a result of rational process (minimize total outlay to find your favorite game of a group, and buy only the best.)
Sure, a few people will take the 4 hour option, but I'd bet their internal numbers show that the presence of the 4 hour option drives a lot of 1-week options -- and they'd rather rent 4 games for a week each ($28 revenue) than one game for a month ($14 revenue).
I could also see a gaming party where we rent 3 or 4 games and see what we think as a group. Again my interest would be in minimization of total spend, not optimization of hourly cost. Obviously the lowest hourly cost would be poker night or go on a hike and picnic.
Also, for an article only two months old, Amazon reports I can buy the game new with free prime shipping for $17.99 which makes the "rent 90 days for $30" rather odd, because less than 60 days later I could buy the game for about half the rental cost.