Xbox 360 Dominates 2008 Game Rentals

Seven of the top ten most rented titles in 2008 were Xbox 360 games, the remaining three were Wii titles, according to a survey by Rentrak and Home Video Essentials.

Rentrak used Home Video Essentials, which measures consumer rental activity and grosses on more than 65,000 film and video game properties, looking at retail, online and kiosk locations. The service tracks more than one billion rental transactions a year.

Other interesting tidbits:

Both Xbox 360 and Wii have increased their overall rental market share in 2008. Xbox 360 increased from 26.1% to 36.8%, while consumer spending on Wii game rentals increased from 7.3% in 2007 to 17.1% in 2008.

In 2008, Xbox 360 jumped up two titles from 2007 with seven of the Top Ten Renting Games, versus having five of the Top Ten Renting Games the previous year.

In 2008, seven of the Top Ten Renting Games were rated Mature, versus in 2007 only four of the Top Ten Renting Games were rated mature.

It’s interesting to see the sorts of games that people tend to rent. Most of the ones up there, like Call of Duty, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Mario Kart, seem like the sorts of games you keep for quite awhile for replayability and multiplayer, not rent.