I fired up my 360 and installed the New Xbox Experience last night.. After making my avatar and fiddling with the menus, I sunk my teeth into the feature I was most looking forward to, Netflix streaming, and watched a couple episodes of a short-lived, Jay Mohr TV show.
This afternoon, I went back to watch some more, only to discover that the show was no longer listed in my Instant Watch Queue on the 360. A quick trip to the Netflix website revealed that, yes, it was still in my queue but, no, it was not available for Xbox.
Apparently, a lot of movies and TV shows have dropped off the face of the service over the last twenty-four hours. Joystiq did a little bit of matlocking and found the thing that they all have in common: Columbia Pictures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment. What an amazing coincidence!
There is, at present, no way of knowing if a movie you want to watch is on the 360 blacklist until it's in your queue, where Netflix lists what videos cannot be watched on the console. So, if you were planning on curling up on the couch to watch The Freshman (as I had wanted to do later this evening), you're out of luck.
Contest:
7:40 PM on 11.18.2008
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Does MS allow Sony things on the 360?....Nope
Sony does make royalty money from subscriptions through Netflix by licensing their movies. This sophomoric, ridiculous, inane, juvenile, retarded, scrupleless posturing bt Sony isn't helping anyone. It's just legalized extortion.
Good job Sony. Thanks.
Just fair notice to you guys. Sony owns: Sony Pictures Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, and MGM. Fox holds distribution rights for Home Video of MGM titles, but Sony may be able to circumvent that on language. If MGM's library falls out of the streaming service, I'll cancel my Netflix, since Netflix apparently doesn't have a backbone in this matter.
How anyone can think this is a good idea for anyone is absurd.
Thanks!
The more you know ___----*
I had no idea, Sony is just grumpy or something.
It appears that the sudden yoinking of Columbia Pictures films from NXE Instant Queue access is a licensing issue with Sony after all. MTV Multiplayer pinged us with word that, on the rental service's official blog, Netflix corp. communications VP Steve Swasey writes:
"As watching instantly becomes a more prominent part of the Netflix service, our goal is to have all of our streaming content licensed for all of our partner devices. We're doing well in this area, but it will take some time before we fully achieve that goal. Today, titles regularly come in and out of license and there is a natural ebb and flow to what we have on license at any given point in time. In the case of Xbox 360, a few hundred titles are temporarily unavailable to be streamed via the Xbox game console. Those titles are still available to be watched on subscribers' computers and on TVs via other partner devices, and we hope they'll be licensed for Xbox 360 shortly."
Totally makes sense, I was thinking just video games though.
It does make no sense really........
I can see the pettyness coming!
Hardey har.
It's just too bad that the end user is the one who takes the brunt of this attack. Won't someone ever think of the end user???
People tend to think "Sony" as a whole, but I highly doubt Sony Computer Entertainment is running over to Sony Pictures, telling them what to do, saying "Oh, you guys can't allow your movies to be streamed to Xbox 360s, cuz they're our competition". Unless of course there was some major douche at Sony Corp over everybody's head, who just wanted to be an ass. But that's a different story.
all of you who are saying this or that makes no sense, sony is just doing it for the lulz, blah blah blah...you have absolutely no idea what the terms of their licensing agreement with netflix actually looks like. they may or may not get any incremental revenue whatsoever from microsoft's integration of netflix' online platform, in which case, sony has absolutely no incentive to aid the competition.
@alexradl: Yeah, intentionally preventing people from downloading your IPs, meaning you no longer receive the royalty fees associated with them, is completely logical.
@Rational Animal: I find it hard to believe that Netflix would deny monetary compensation to IP owners because of the specific peripheral brand - especially since the 360 isn't the only set-top device to do so.
What if Microsoft decides to stop selling Windows for use on VAIO computers? I'm pretty sure Sony would feel that.
Here's a good example of stepping a little over the competition line, into douchebagy-ness and its results:
Google gets spanked
Go screw yourself.
http://www.themediamall.com/playon
Love,
Spilt
Its a bit messed up but hey, business is business. If Netflix didn't cover this shit with Sony before doing the whole xbox streaming thing, then guess what! its Netflix fault.
They should have covered this before, and if they did, its a dick move to offer the service but limited selection to not fixing its status with the property owner.
same here.. lmfao after reading. i could hear a boo ya from the sony fanboy side. i tell ya, these console wars be getting ugly.. the race for 2nd is a vicious one.. :P