Oddball rentals at video stores

[S1500]

I remember in St. Paul there was a video store(a nice one) where you could rent Game Boy games. I mean really, game boy games! Found that to be the oddest rental availability ever. They didn't charge much at all, and gave you 5 days on rentals.

 

So what was the most unusual rentability you could find for video game stuff at video stores? Did in fact Atari 2600s & their games get rented out? Earliest console I remember renting was a NES. Those were always fun for a weekend.

[Tempest]

So what was the most unusual rentability you could find for video game stuff at video stores? Did in fact Atari 2600s & their games get rented out? Earliest console I remember renting was a NES. Those were always fun for a weekend.

There was a store by where I went to school that was renting Atari 2600 games as late as 1989-90 (right next to the NES games). I remember because one of them was Oink! which at that time I had never seen before.

 

Tempest

[nester]

A video store in my town used to have the NES Action 52 for rent. I never had the courage to rent it though. They also had Maxi 15 and many of the other unlicensed games. Another rental place in town had NES games up until almost the new century.

[CGQuarterly]

There is a video store here in my town that, the last time I was in there anyway, was still renting SNES and Genesis games. Kind of funny because most of them could be purchased elsewhere for less than he was charging to rent them (he charges the same amount to rent any game, regardless of age.)

 

Chris

[Seob]

CD-i games at the video store.

[+RandomPerson]

A rental place called "Horray For Hollywood" in my city had a famicom cart of SMB2j with an adaptor for the NES and they rented it out. I ended up getting that exact cart in the long run. My cousin or might have been my neighbour convinced them to sell it and I traded for it. It was so awesome to have a mario game no one else had. Then when everyone went gaga for lost levels on the SNES years later and I already knew the whole game start to finish folks where amazed. Got to shut alot of people up that didn't believe I already owned the game in the 80's. Funny how alot of kids from a small city of 20,000 think that nothing exists outside of it.

[Tempest]

A rental place called "Horray For Hollywood" in my city had a famicom cart of SMB2j with an adaptor for the NES and they rented it out. I ended up getting that exact cart in the long run. My cousin or might have been my neighbour convinced them to sell it and I traded for it. It was so awesome to have a mario game no one else had. Then when everyone went gaga for lost levels on the SNES years later and I already knew the whole game start to finish folks where amazed. Got to shut alot of people up that didn't believe I already owned the game in the 80's. Funny how alot of kids from a small city of 20,000 think that nothing exists outside of it.

My local store had the same thing, except I think they called it "Super Mario 6: Mario Marches On" or something like that. It was really cool to play, but I had already played it years earlier on my friends Famicom (he was from Japan). I also got to play Castlevania III and Super Mario 3 much earlier than all my friends that way.

 

Tempest

[Artlover]

A rental place called "Horray For Hollywood" in my city had a famicom cart of SMB2j with an adaptor for the NES and they rented it out. I ended up getting that exact cart in the long run. My cousin or might have been my neighbour convinced them to sell it and I traded for it. It was so awesome to have a mario game no one else had. Then when everyone went gaga for lost levels on the SNES years later and I already knew the whole game start to finish folks where amazed. Got to shut alot of people up that didn't believe I already owned the game in the 80's. Funny how alot of kids from a small city of 20,000 think that nothing exists outside of it.

You should clarify that by saying "pirate famicom cart". SMB2j was never released on cart by Nintendo.

[Tempest]

You should clarify that by saying "pirate famicom cart". SMB2j was never released on cart by Nintendo.

Very true. I was so ticked off when the 'cool looking' disk drive my friend had was not released here in the US. I know it sounds silly, but there was just something amazing about the FDS at the time. Maybe it was those tiny little disks compared to my huge 5.25" disks that I was using for my Apple IIe at the time?

 

Tempest

[Lincoln]

I was in a video rental store this summer that was still renting NES games. I think there were a few Master System games in the mix too. I didn't ask if anyone actually still rented them.

 

The store was the last of a local chain. I'd estimate at least half of the videos available for rent were VHS. It closed down around the end of July. The place was a dump. I can't imagine operating a business like that.