XBox 360 users are getting a much anticipated update to the dashboard tomorrow morning at 5 AM Eastern Time. A good number of these owners are new or returning Netflix subscribers who are excited for the update because it would allow their 360 to stream movies from Netflix, but it looks like they're going to have to settle for a crippled service for the time being.
The feature is incompatible with hundreds of movie titles; movies that are available to watch instantly on the Netflix website, but not through an XBox 360. Movies that just so happen to be Columbia Pictures movies. Columbia, as in the company owned by Sony. Sony as in the makers of 360 rival PlayStation 3.
The affected movies range from Superbad to Air Force One.
Netflix PR guy Steve Swasey commented on the situation on the official Netflix blog tonight, saying:
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.
In other words, Sony is being a toddler and making it difficult for Netflix to get the license to their movies, but only to their nemesis, the XBox 360. Roku player, Samsung and LG Blu-ray players? They're fine. It's that pesky 360 thing taking their PS3 money they're bitter about.
Someone needs to tell them that Microsoft computers are regularly used to watch their movies on the Netflix site.
