Starting this week in Dallas & Austin, Best Buy will be testing a kiosk like machine that will actually allow you to trade in your old games for store credit. As an added bonus, there will be no restrictions on what you can use the store credit for (Buy a new HDTV? Washing Machine? Computer? or maybe even a PS3? lol).
If you need "Instant Gratification", then this is for you because you will receive a instant store credit available to be used right then if your disc is accepted.
After inserting your used game, the machine will scan the disc to make sure they properly work (no scratches or unreadable sectors) and if all works, just wait for your credit to be printed. The kiosks machines will also rent and sale used games and movies right there.
This could be very bad news for GameStop, which owns about %90 percent of the used game market and makes almost half of its profit from that alone. Just image one of these machines in every Best Buy store, which is about 900, and that pretty much sums it up.
This type of service isn't new by any means as Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Redbox, Blockbuster, and even Toys "R" Us are already using/trying it. I think the clear difference is the capability of using the store credit on virtually anything they sell rather than just one specific product.
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