Giant Bomb Video Game News

Yesterday saw the disappointing news that a large number of titles had been blocked from the new Xbox 360 version of the Netflix streaming service--all titles which Sony Pictures owns the rights to, coincidentally or not. Sounds a little like an I'm-taking-my-movies-and-going-home scenario, doesn't it?

MTV Multiplayer went straight to Netflix corp-comm dude Steve Swasey to get the real story. And what is that story?

"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."

When asked if the license just coincidentally expired as Microsoft was adding Netflix support or Sony Pictures Entertainment specifically requested Xbox 360 streaming to be disabled, Swasey wouldn’t say.

"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," he said. "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."

Perhaps the stream of cash into Sony Pictures' coffers needs to make with less ebb and more flow before all this gets resolved. I'm just glad I happened to stream Super Size Me last weekend, before all this went down. Eat your veggies, kids!