Wed, Nov 19, 2008 | 07:34 GMT
NXE Netflix streaming loses Sony’s Columbia Pictures movies
According to Joystiq, NXE will launch this morning with a service devoid of “hundreds” of Columbia films. Why? Because they’re owned by Sony, silly.
MTV clarified the removal of a swathe of movies from the service is indeed a licensing issue, carrying the following quote from Netflix comms boss Steve Swasey:
“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.”
13 comments
#1
Blerk
19/11/08, 9:32 am
An amusing move from Sony for a change – deny the rights, muddy the launch, then sell them the rights soon afterwards and reap the licensing rewards from your competitor’s platform.
#2
airdom
19/11/08, 4:04 pm
well even though columbia pictures isn’t there, there are still other sony studios which are still on the service.
but anyways, i don’t care, we dont have netflix in Canada lol.
#3
patlike
19/11/08, 4:06 pm
I saw that on Canada.com this morning. Does Netflix actually operate in Canada at all?
#4
airdom
19/11/08, 8:36 pm
well no, not at all actually
Netflix is a U.S only business i believe (which sucks!)
#5
patlike
19/11/08, 9:02 pm
Ah! I was right then. I assumed so, which is why I didn’t run the story this morning
#6
airdom
19/11/08, 9:09 pm
i hope they’ll make up for a service like Netflix in Canada and in Europe for you suckas! kinda sucks that this HUGE feature is us only
not only Americans have Xbox 360′s you know!
#7
patlike
19/11/08, 9:17 pm
Yeah, it’s true. I reckon there’ll be a race to get a proper service up and running in Europe. Sony’s going to release the Movie Store over here at the end of next year. MS will want to be here for that. Not easy, though. Certainly nowhere near as easy as it’ll be for Sony.
#8
airdom
19/11/08, 10:17 pm
The Xbox 360 has no video service at all in Europe? i know i the US they have TONS of shows and movies to grab, but all we had on the 360 up here in Canada were movies to rent over the video service. Never rented any through that though, kinda think it’s useless. but if we had a service like Netflix then i’d be down for it.
#9
patlike
19/11/08, 10:19 pm
Yeah, it does have a download service. Has done for ages. Nothing on the scale of the US Netflix thing, though, and there’s no HD streaming.
#10
mightyhokie
19/11/08, 10:20 pm
If you stream movies from Netflix via the internet, how come y’all can’t use the service? That confuses me.
#11
airdom
19/11/08, 10:34 pm
never said i could stream Netflix movies from the net??? i’m in Canada so i can’t even use Netflix.
so no HD movie rentals on the xbox in Europe? that sucks =/
#12
mightyhokie
19/11/08, 10:48 pm
fuck…that sucks man. strange thing for netflix to just ignore a market like that. i understand about them not wanting to mail dvds because if anyone from a foreign nation (foreign to the US that is)keeps the dvd there is nothing that netflix could do to get it back, (stuff like that happens on Indian reservations sometimes…which are literally nations within themselves)but for digital content i can’t see why it would be a big deal.
#13
Psychotext
19/11/08, 11:14 pm
airdom – We have the standard video marketplace over here (hence HD rentals)… but no streaming services like the Netflix thing (unless you want to jump through major hoops).