In theory, a great idea and part of the status quo of the business, but in reality, you need to be a die-hard to enjoy fiddling with the latest software before you buy. Give them to me to rent. I had a limited demo. Strategy and role playing games are a wonderful example. The more you get into them, the more you want them.
Action games can wear thin pretty quickly.
So, get me hooked through rental. I'm paying for the chance to try your software and end up paying you full retail for it. That's getting close to fifty bucks a pop. That's almost seven week-ends of watching Titanic on the big screen, not counting matinees. When you consider that the average games enthusiast might spend anywhere from three hundred to six hundred dollars a year on games software, and the average VCR owning household may only spend around two hundred bucks, maximum, on both rentals and purchases of videos per year, you have to wonder why no one is looking at rental as a way of increasing the number of software buyers.