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Redbox, the $1-movie-rental vending machine business with over 20K kiosks in 17.5K locations, has been operating trial-run $2 game rental kiosks since August in Reno, NV and Wilmington, NC.

Now they’re looking to expand it with a quickness.  And they can do it, too.  They only had about a dozen Redbox locations five years ago, and they have the backing of McDonalds.  We will be assimilated.

Redbox is talking with video game developers about offering their products in its DVD kiosks and hopes to avoid the kind of resistance it encountered from some Hollywood studios, Redbox’s president said on Wednesday.  Time Warner’s Warner Bros, News Corp’s Twentieth Century Fox and General Electric’s NBC Universal have cut off Redbox’s access to their DVDS, accusing the company of undervaluing potential DVD sales by renting them for $1 a day.
Brian Farrell, CEO of video game maker THQ Inc, said he would consider allowing Redbox to rent out THQ games, which include franchises such as Saints Row.  “If you look at movies and music in some ways, resisting new business models has not been a great formula for success, so one of the things I like about our industry is we tend to think, ‘We have to adapt to this change.’ So it’s part of our DNA,” Farrell told the Summit.

Meanwhile, Blockbuster is charging full-bore into the 18th century and has begun selling . . . books?  For real: