Is Sony Blocking Movie Releases Between Netflix And NXE?

Added 11/18/2008 by Se

On the eve of the release of the New Xbox Experience, it appears a potential roadblock has been raised. Joystiq reports that most of the movies from Columbia Pictures are not available for streaming through the service (North America) with Netflix for Xbox Live. It gets interesting when you take into consideration that Columbia Pictures is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony which is Microsoft's main rival.

Doing a little preemptive strike before NXE drops tomorrow, the staff over at Joystiq decided to check their queue and noticed that there were a large number of titles that contained the notice: "Not available on Xbox." Further sleuthing led the site to discover that all of the films had one common thread, they were distributed from Columbia Pictures. So is Sony trying to rain on Microsoft's parade, by blocking these films for use with NXE? While it appears that way, it doesn't really add-up, as movies directly distributed by Sony Picture Entertainment can be used with the service.

Just another one of those things to make you go hmm...

Posted by: Duzi Date: Nov 18th 2008

For those wondering what movies this effects: Such classics as Bad Boys, Men in Black and The Fifth Element will not be able to be viewed from your Xbox. Xbox can only stream those movies available in the "Watch Now" category. So even though great movies like Casino Royale are released by Columbia, you can't watch them on Netflix's website, so you wouldn't be able to watch them on your Xbox anyway.