 |  | By Anna König
Wednesday, 2 April 2008 |
So much has happened this week in the world of DVD and games rental. New packages have been launched, old faces have risen from the dead, and of course, Grand Theft Auto 4 was released!
GTA IV Not Such a Hit with XBOX 360 Gamers
Suprising news about GTA IV reaches us from the excellent games rental site Games Frenzy.
It turns out that despite the launch of GTA IV on both Xbox 360 and PS3 (previously, the GTA games have always come out on PS3 first), the game failed to excite the 360 players as much as the PS3 players.
Despite being perhaps the most highly anticipated games releases of all time, GTA IV entered the XBox 360 GamesFrenzy rental chart in second place, behind Army of Two which was released two months ago.
“We were a bit surprised!” said Terry Bray over at Games Frenzy HQ.
“Gamers seem to have gone for the Playstation 3 as their choice of console for this game.”
Rockstar, the producers of GTA IV, need not start panicking though. GTA IV headed the PS3 GamesFrenzy rental chart with record figures, according to Bray.
Goodies for Pre-Ordering GTA IV at Blockbuster!
IN return for pre-ordering Grand Theft Auto 4, Blockbuster DVD Rental was giving away a free rental AND a free £5 voucher!
Unfortunately the offer was only open to customers pre-ordering the game on the Xbox 360 console, and not the PS3.
GTA IV (the fourth game in the series) was released this Tuesday (29th April) and follows the story of European immigrant Niko Bellic, hoping to escape his past and find his fortune in Liberty City; the gateway to the land of opportunity.
It would appear that Xbox 360 customer are getting all the added benefits when it comes to GTA IV. Not only could they snap up the Blockbuster offer, but they will also be able to access exclusive GTA content (due to be released in the Autumn) and play with an online community of more than 10 million members.
DVD to Home are Back With a.. er… sort of Vengeance!
IT wouldn’t be the first time an obituary was printed prematurely.
After hearing that his death had been reported in the New York Journal, Mark Twain commented that “reports of [his] death are greatly exaggerated.”
In February, we reported (with a sigh of relief!) that DVD to Home had disappeared off the radars. However after a short spell offline, DVD to Home is back.
We’re not quite sure why they disappeared (someone forget to pay the hosting bills perhaps?), or for how long they were eventually offline for. The amateur-looking website would not appear to have undergone a tarting up.
The search bar will still only let you search for film titles that are under 10 characters long; there appears to be very few films to rent that were released later than 2002; and what’s more, for unlimited monthly rentals (one disc at a time) DVD to Home are charging £9.99; the same as rental giants LoveFilm charge for the same package!
While it is nice to see the smaller rental companies battle against the LoveFilm monopoly, DVD to Home needs to go a long way before it can be taken seriously in the rental arena!
LoveFilm Unravels Top TV Shows
IN their fantastic (quarterly) digital magazine, the DVD rental giant that is LoveFilm investigates what it is that makes a really good TV serial.
Looking at top TV thrillers including 24, Prison Break, The Wire and The Sopranos, LoveFilm gives a brief history of each show, as well as highlighting the top moments.
The Sopranos is described as being “addictive, razor sharp, and centred around James Gandolfini’s bravura performance.”
All the TV shows mentioned in the magazine are available to rent on the LoveFilm website. A large number of the shows do fall within the ‘crime’ genre, however for a bit of lighter viewing, we’d recommend House M.D, Scrubs and Arrested Development.
Games Monster Application Bites the Dust?
AT the beginning of last month, we brought you news that Games Monster had launched a Facebook application, allowing Games Monster customers to manage and update their play lists from the comfort of Facebook.
Two weeks ago, we checked out the application, to see how it was going down with the Facebook masses.
13 users had added the Games Monster play list updater to their profiles; a slow start, but a start never the less.
However almost a month later the number of Facebookers using the application has dropped dramatically.
Currently nobody has added the application to their Facebook profile; making it one of the most underused applications on the social networking website.
Here at ChooseDVDRental, we’ve got our fingers crossed for Games Monster.
LoveFilm New Games Package
WE'VE heard rumblings on the ground that Lovefilm is about to launch a new games package.
The £9.99 package is rumoured to allow customers to rent 4 games/DVDs a month (2 at any one time).
This is great news for gamers, as it means they can always have a game at home to play!
In other LoveFilm news, I Am Legend, the Will Smith futuristic classic is currently topping the charts as the most requested film by LoveFilm customers, with St. Trinians and Enchanted scooping up second and third places respectively.
Gaming customers are going wild over Crackdown (on the Xbox 360) and Resident Evil 4 on the Wii and PS2.
We’re sure all that is set to change now that Grand Theft Auto 4 has hit the shelves.
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