PlayStation 5 Rental Service in Japan Sees Surging Demand
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- GEO’s ultra-cheap PlayStation 5 rental service is still maxed out across half its locations, even a month after launch.
- The PS5 rental started as a pivot from declining rental sales of CDs and DVDs.
- GEO offers its customers to rent a PS5 console for eight days at 980 yen (around $6.90 USD).
GEO’s budget-friendly PS5 rental service remains fully booked one month after launch, offering access to the console for less than $7.
The service, which kicked off on Feb. 28, 2025, the same day Monster Hunter Wilds dropped, lets customers rent a PS5 console for eight days at just 980 yen (around $6.90).
In an interview with ITmedia, GEO representative Yusuke Sakai said that 200 out of 400 participating stores are still renting out consoles at full capacity, with zero units sitting idle.
GEO, a company known for disc rentals and secondhand games shifted to PS5 rental in strategy as CD and DVD rental numbers kept dropping due to inevitable rise of online streaming services, with the price of the PS5 jumping significantly in Japan on September 2024 (from $470 to $561).
“We started looking into whether we could use our current rental system to rent out PS5 consoles,” said Yusuke Sakai. And it made sense as GEO was already buying and maintaining PS5 consoles, so there were no additional staffing or training costs involved.
In addition to the base plan, there’s also a 15-day rental for 1,780 yen ($12.50), with daily extensions available for 500 yen ($3.50). Every unit comes freshly factory reset, meaning players can’t jump back into the same console with saved progress, so longer rentals (or extensions) are encouraged.
It is worth noting that a month earlier, Sony brought the PlayStation 5 rental service to the UK through Raylo.
