Sony Netflix content "temporarily unavailable" on NXE

Clever timing?

19 November 2008 13:00 GMT / By Verity Burns

As the New Xbox Experience is launched, news has surfaced that hundreds of movie titles from Sony Pictures Entertainment previously able to stream via Netflix on Xbox Live, will no longer be available.

Interestingly the movies have only been withdrawn from the Xbox 360, but are still available on other Netflix compatible devices, such as PC and Mac.

However Steve Swasey, VP of corporate communications, has said that the loss of movies for the 360 is only temporary, and is simply a matter of re-licensing them for the console.

"In the case of Xbox 360, a few hundred titles are temporarily unavailable to be streamed via the Xbox game console," he said.

"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."

As for whether the timing of the "temporary loss" was a matter of co-incidence or something a little more sinister from Sony, Swasey wouldn't comment.

He did add however: "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."

The loss should only affect US Xboxers, as Netflix currently does not stream to the UK. Microsoft has not commented at this time.