Joystiq's James Ransom-Wiley did some investigating over some changes to Netflix's Xbox 360 streaming service and stumbled onto both a troubling change to availability and the probable reason for the change.
It seems that a chunk of movies that were previously set up for streaming via the Netflix Instant Queue service recently flipped the off switch on a pile of titles, but only for Xbox 360 users. I took a gander into my queue, and sure enough, a handful of titles now say "Not available on Xbox" on them. When you load up the Netflix app on the 360, the blocked titles simply don't appear.
So what's the deal? Well, all of the unavailable videos are from Sony-owned studios, like Columbia or Sony Pictures. It's not hard to imagine that Sony eventually realized that it didn't want any of its movies on Microsoft's shiny new video streaming partnership. In fact, they might not even be finished. Some titles listed as Sony Pictures releases, like Super Size Me, are still available. Others, like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story or An Evening With Kevin Smith, are not.
So if you're considering getting a Netflix account to prepare for tomorrow's Xbox 360 update, make sure you take this into account. Because this seems to have taken a noticeable chunk out of the Netflix offering.
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