NEWS - Monday, October 4, 2004

Xbox Joins New Video Game Information Service
Rentrak Corporation today welcomed the Microsoft Xbox division as the first customer of Home Video Essentials(TM) Industry Data Service, Rentraks video game business intelligence service. As a subscriber to the Home Video Essentials videogame database, Microsoft Xbox now has continuous access to national video game rental performance information including weekly and cumulative top-title performance, market shares broken-out by genre, ESRB rating, platform, and publisher, and overall industry benchmarking on a week-to-week and year-to-year basis. Rentraks Home Video Essentials(TM) Industry Data Service allows content providers, franchise and brand managers to monitor and analyze rentals of their own DVD, VHS, and video game properties in order to identify trends, quantify performance, and benchmark against the broader business sector in which they operate. "Rentraks Home Video Essentials video game business intelligence data lets us track and analyze the video game market faster and better than ever before," said Aaron Greenberg, Xbox Business Manager. "We now have flexible, web-based access to deep data that is updated continuously so we can track Xbox titles in the market and compare them to wider industry software performance and trends." "We are very pleased to be working with the Microsoft Xbox division, a market leading and innovative platform in the video game industry," said Brad Hackley, vice president of business development for Home Video Essentials at Rentrak. "Microsoft and Xbox have single-handedly redefined what modern video gaming is all about, and we are pleased to be providing them with high performance analytical tools that deliver crucial consumer behavior insights into the dynamic video game industry."Source: http://www.prnewswire.com