GameStop addressed Best Buy's plans at their annual shareholders meeting in Southlake, Texas on Tuesday, explaining that their years of customer service give it the winning edge over cold, calulating machines.

"GameStop understands that trading in used games and consoles is a highly-assisted activity," the company said. "We are very confident in our business model that allows our expert associates to help consumers trade in product, a fact not addressed with a self-serve process."

Of course, the expert associates generally don't do more while trading in then look at the games and tell you the price you'd be getting, which is what the kiosks themseves do, but this is beside the point.

The point here is that GameStop isn't afraid of Best Buy. They aren't afraid of Amazon. And if you start accepting game trade-ins, they more than likely won't be afraid of you.

GameStop is unfazed by new rival in used-video-game market [Star-Telegram.com]

Video game specialty chain GameStop may have the lion's share of the used market currently, but the vultures are definitely circling. This week, several Best Buy locations in Austin and Houston Texas will be testing game trade-in kiosks, which allow customers to automatically trade their used video games for store credit without the need to clog up cash registers with complicated transactions. The machines work much like the ones Wal-Mart is testing in their stores, checking the discs for readabiity before accepting them. The main difference here is that instead of simply charging money back to a credit card, a process which takes 3-4 business days, the Best Buy machines will actually issue a Best Buy gift card, instantly redeemable towards anything the store carries.

Along with the kiosks, the selected stores will also begin selling used games as well, perhaps gaging how they fare against more traditional retail outlets.

The news comes by way of a blog post from Best Buy CMO Barry Judge, who explains the move towards used games is all about value and choice...and passion.

We're excited about this test, especially because we know how deeply passionate our customers and our employees are about gaming, movies and entertainment overall. And the trade-in and used value propositions will give those passionate customers even more choice and value at Best Buy.

With Wal-Mart's rather convoluted used game solution, Best Buy is currently looking like the best bet to peel off some of the used game business from GameStop. Not only will the kiosks provide instant gratification in ways that Amazon and Wal-Mart are not, it's all done without having to stand in a long line and dealing with a GameStop employee. I love my friends who work at GameStop, but if I can get similiar values without having to bug them, then that's what I would likely do.

New Places and Spaces - Used Games Launch [Barry Judge - thanks Jim!]

The machines, currently being tested in 77 Wal-Mart locations in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, should be relatively simple to use. You scan the bar code on the game box in order to receive a quote. Once you accept the quote, you insert the game discs, which I am assuming are checked for damage before being accepted. Then things get a bit cloudy.

While the Video Game Buy Back kiosk shown in this photo has a Wal-Mart sign that says "Trade in Games for Credit", it doesn't seem to mean Wal-Mart store credit. According to an e-Play representative, the machines only support charging the trade-in value back to a credit card, which takes 2-3 days, according to the instructions on the company's website.

We also asked e-Play who sets the trade-in prices for the games, and are awaiting a call back with that information, as the representative we spoke with did not know.

NeoCrisis had a chance to try out one of the machines this weekend, only to find that most of their games wouldn't scan and the one that did (Mirror's Edge) wasn't in the kiosk's database.

Not exactly a GameStop killer of a trade-in program, really. With no immediate payout, I can't see these kiosks taking any substantial amount of trade-in business from the video game retailer any time soon.

UPDATE: e-Play has confirmed that they themselves set the trade-in prices based on a proprietary algorithm that can change as regularly as daily based on a number of different factors. They also verified that trade-in credit can only be applied to a credit card or debit card at this time, so no Wal-Mart store credit is changing hands.

Also, a representative from Wal-Mart contacted us to let us know that if the pilot program is successful, the company would consider working with e-Play to provide actual Wal-Mart credit instead of a charge back.

Trade Used Games at Walmart [NeoCrisis via Cheap Ass Gamer]

Nick Brutal over at Destructoid had a lovely conversation with a Sony rep this past Christmas Eve at a local EB Games. Seems the PS3 kiosk at the store had been locking up regularly since it arrived, and Mr. Brutal there decided to ask the rep why.

"So dude over there," I said pointing to the busy clerk, "says he keeps the kiosk off because it keeps freezing up."

"Nope. No it doesn't."

"Well, actually, yeah. It does. I've seen it happen myself."

"No. It doesn't. We did that on purpose," he said.

"You make the entire console lock up on purpose because ... why?"

"We do that so that people won't play it all day long," he explained. "Specifically during Motorstorm, we made it freeze up a lot."

PlayStation 3 kiosks freezing up ... on purpose! [Destructoid via Slashdot]

Destructoid's Robert Summa, surely en route to scope out Tickle Me Extreme Elmo's to shill on eBay this holiday season, got some footage and photo snaps of the freshly installed PlayStation 3 kiosk at the flagship Toys "R" Us in Times Square. The above video shows that the kiosks are equipped with (at the very least) a Motorstorm demo, but not all are currently operational. Check the D for photos not nearly as artifacted as that YouTube clip.

That's right: start calling your local Toys "R" Us now and demand that they install a PS3 kiosk just for you. Michael McWhertor

PS3 playable at Toys R Us Times Square [Destructoid]

Earlier, we reported that stores like EB and Gamespot were likely to use credit card deposits to ensure no punk ass kid wandered off with the Wiimote. Now, Nintendo's weighing in on how it'll be handled.

"Retailers will either receive a pre-built, self-contained interactive [kiosk], including a TV, game console and controllers, while others will receive the game console and controllers and will set up an interactive Wii experience using their own TV," said Harrison.

Echoing previous statements by Nintendo of Australia spokesman Vispi Bhopti, Harrison said that retail staff members would be at the demo units ostensibly to help consumers "have a successful first experience with Wii." Whether or not Wii's purportedly intuitive controls need explaining, staff members will likely serve as deterrents in attempted thefts of the Wii Remote.

I honestly don't understand why Nintendo doesn't wire the Wiimotes for the stores. It's possible: in Leipzig, I played with a Wii that had Wired controllers. This all seems like a needless hassle for a problem solved quite elegantly.

Other solution: slap one of those anti-theft stickers on the back of a Wiimote. Florian Eckhardt

Wii Kiosks to be Wireless, Supervised [The Wiire]

Well, hello there! Did you wake up this morning, throw open your curtains upon a blustering, gray dawn sky, hear a far off starling emit a lamentful wail very much like the death croak of a small baby and think to yourself, "Welp, time to slit the old wrists?"

Man, I know I did. And, frankly, nothing's likely to snap me out of my suicidal ennui. But you? You're an American. You live in the land of Milky Ways and Honey Combs. And you've got a Best Buy around the corner. And at that Best Buy? Well, if word from the PS3 Forums is anything to go by, there may very well be a playable PS3 kiosk waiting to just obliterate your soul's despondency!

Well, at least until you walk away and realize that touching a PS3 kiosky is likely the closest you'll get to playing one until the eBay gouging dies down, sometime next year. Florian Eckhardt

PS3 In Best Buy Today! [PS3 Forums]

At the newly opened Bic Camera in Kawasaki, Japan, this beastly PlayStation 3 display unit has been installed. This monster looks bigger than many Tokyo apartments we've visited.

Armed with four very nice Sony Bravia hi-def displays, the unit has no playable software, but is instead looping trailers similar to the Akihabara-based display unit we covered last week which is currently running video of Afrika, Everybody's Golf 5, Genji, WarHawk and Eye of Judgment.

No word on whether any Bic Camera employees were crushed during the kiosks landing. Michael McWhertor

15,000 demo kiosks will go into U.S. and Canadian stores during the holiday season, according to Jack Tretton. "Once the consumers get their hands on a PS3 and understand what's under the hood, I think price will not be a factor in the decision-making process,'' said Tretton said in an interview.

Uh huh. Keep in mind that Jack's known for saying some crazy things. We'll take him at his word, though: like Ashcraft, we'll all be slavishly lining up to buy one, price be damned, once we play it. Of course, while price might not matter, being able to find one certainly does. Florian Eckhardt

Sony to Demonstrate PS3 in Five Times the U.S. Stores as PS2 [Bloomberg]

We're doing our part in making sure every blunder is well known by the public and criticized appropriately. Case in point: After the Microsoft press event everyone was encouraged to go across the street to the Roosevelt hotel for some interaction with some of the upcoming titles. One minute this row of kiosks was functioning perfectly, the next second they were all dead and the staffers were puzzled—power outage, maybe?—good thing this happened at the press event and not on the show floor. I would hate to anger mobs of Microsoft fanboys.