As far as I'm aware, this is not true. The first-sale doctrine allowed the rental of VHS and video games bought normally at retail stores. The movie and video game industry went ballistic over this, a Nintendo executive called it "commercial rape". The movie industry took it to court and lost, and tried lobbying congress to no avail.

IIRC, they then hatched a scheme where the retail availability of new movies on VHS would be restricted at least for a time, forcing video rental shops to pay more for copies of popular new movies.