It doesn't make sense to me for anyone who is looking mainly for single player experiences to own more than one console when for far less money you can rent/borrow systems and try out the games for far less than the price of the consoles.

For example, If I owned just a Wii and I wanted to play Uncharted and Ratchet and Clank and maybe Matal Gear solid IV over 2 weeks just to experience something different then in my currency it would cost $24 to rent all 3 titles for 8 days and the console for about $40 for 2 weeks. So thats a total of $64 to experience 40 hours of gameplay.

Since the price of the system is $799 you could rent the system 5-6 times and buy it when the price comes down and still come out ahead in terms of total money spent.

Especially the single player experiences like Tales or FF, whats the point in "buying" a system just for that one game when you can rent it cheaper and still get the same experience. I think its obviously different with games like Gears of War or Left 4 dead/Halo 3 where the majority of the experience is online and if you're not into that then theres no reason to borrow the console.

Since when can you rent consoles?

I haven't seen console renting since last gen. Also it's a hassle, though I did borrow a PS1 to play FF7 during the N64 days.

In the U.S. the gap for rental to buy is much tighter. $50 to rent a PS3 for 5 days with a $400 held on my credit card until I return it, at the Blockbuster by my house. A PS3 is only $399 in the US so you can see why we don't really rent consoles.

wierd, practically every rental place here offers console rentals. But anyway, if you can borrow/exchange your console with someone else then its much cheaper than owning both yourself.

I didn't think most places had consoles for rent this gen. I rented the Xbox a lot last gen before I had the cash for it :-p.

Wow, I had no idea you could. I haven't seen it in the UK at least.

Damn! Thats huge...

Who would rent at that price?

I don't think I'd buy a system for single player only games either. I have bought many consoles, all of which had some incredibly good multiplayer games available!

The Family Video and Blockbuster chains allow consoles to be rented though a lot of the details depend largely on the specific store. The blockbuster here has PS3s and 360s for rent (20$ 7 nights) and the family video only has 360s (30$ 5 nights + free game rental)