The company wasn’t shy about what was happening. It’s “permanently transitioning out of the games business,” the spokesperson said. There will be good deals on purchases, however. New titles like Death Stranding and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be available for $40 — if you like physical copies of your games, that’s a significant bargain.
While there wasn’t any reasoning given for the change, there’s one likely culprit: the internet. While rental services like GameFly are imperfect substitutes (you’ll have to wait for the game you want), subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass make it easy to play a variety of games — some of them brand new — without committing to full purchases. Also, many games depend heavily on their online components. Even though titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare have single-player stories, you’re missing out if you only skim the surface of the multiplayer component. And of course, Redbox has no alternative if you hate the hassle of discs in the first place. The nature of gaming is changing, and Redbox may simply be acknowledging the new reality.
