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Sony-Owned Columbia Pictures Pulls Movies From Xbox Netflix

All Columbia Pictures movies have been pulled from Xbox Live's version of the Netflix service, following the launch of the New Xbox Experience. Columbia is owned by Sony Pictures, but Netflix claims that the licensing issue should be rectified shortly.

David Jenkins, Blogger

November 19, 2008

1 Min Read
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All Columbia Pictures movies have been pulled from the Xbox Live version of Netflix, following the launch of the New Xbox Experience dashboard update. Columbia Pictures is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment, but the move does not appear to be malicious on the part of Sony executives -- all movies distributed by Sony Pictures still remain accessible through the service. "A few hundred titles are temporarily unavailable to be streamed via the Xbox game console," Netflix corporate communications VP Dave Swasey told consumer website MTV Multiplayer. "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." Swasey was evasive on whether the timing with the New Xbox Experience was coincidental, but suggested that "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."

About the Author

David Jenkins

Blogger

David Jenkins ([email protected]) is a freelance writer and journalist working in the UK. As well as being a regular news contributor to Gamasutra.com, he also writes for newsstand magazines Cube, Games TM and Edge, in addition to working for companies including BBC Worldwide, Disney, Amazon and Telewest.

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