I signed up for an online game rental service the day before Thanksgiving called Gamefly. I only did so because unlike Blockbuster, they offer games for every console out there, including the Nintendo DS. I’m already starting to regret the decision, however, because it takes too long to get the games they ship. Apparently they only have one warehouse and it’s across the country in California.
The timeline of events so far:
11/22 – Sign up. Add Animal Crossing and Mario Kart DS to the queue
11/24 – Both games ship
11/27 – Receive both games
11/28 – Ship back Animal Crossing
11/29 – Next game in queue, Burnout Legends, ships due to something they call Fast Return where as soon as the return envelope is scanned by the post office, the data is transmitted to Game Fly so they don’t have to wait until the title is back in their warehouse before sending the next game. This is supposed to make things quicker.
11/30 – Ship back Mario Kart DS
12/02 – Still have no games
I don’t get why Burnout Legends hasn’t come yet since it took three days last time and that was over a holiday weekend. I also don’t get why three days have passed and they still don’t show that we shipped Mario Kart DS back. It’s just not consistent. We’ve had the service for ten days and only played two games. At this rate we’ll be lucky to rent more than five games in a given month and at $22/month I was expecting a little more. Too bad Circuit City’s partner, Gameznflix, doesn’t have DS games. They are cheaper and you can have three items out at a time, including movies.
Probably because, unlike Netflix, they don’t have shipping/receiving centers in every third city across the U.S. That’s why everything in Netflix is so quick… usually.