Sony Pictures Says Netflix Streaming Issue "Not Specific To Xbox"

MTV Multiplayer has now heard from Sony Pictures themselves, who have tried to squash rumors this was a secret power play.

"This issue is not specific to Xbox or any other individual platform," said a Sony Pictures spokesperson in an e-mailed statement. "Sony Pictures is currently in discussions with the relevant parties to resolve certain licensing matters related to the distribution of its motion pictures. Given the ongoing nature of these discussions, we don't think it is appropriate to comment further at this time."

Sony Pictures' statement suggests this remains a licensing issue, and it's likely streaming will return to Xbox 360 sometime in the future.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Sony is scarred that Microsoft and Netflix could distrbute digital movies in more homes than they can. It was a power play, but it's already biting Sony in it's a$$. The other movie studios now have less to compete with over the two largest online video distributers in the world, Live and Netflix. Beter start spining out those disc Sony if you wana catch up, oh... thats right Blu isn't doing so good. Well you can always jump on the digital downloads train, oh... my bad, it's to late. You can always go into making drink coasters with al those extra disc.

[ErcsYou]

Scared?, no... They are just interested in Microsofts bank account. Im sure this issue can be resolved with a big fat check written out to Sony pictures.

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Why don't you write me a check and buy me a new keyboard, this one is going bad. MS will never pay Sony anything, if anything Sony wants more $ per rent. Sony is hurting, they need all the money they can get.

[Simon_Brezhnev]

lol your just mad because its not on xbox and its a movie u want 2 stream eitha way you have 2 wait a year for a new release but not on PSN lmao

[CloudsEnd]

Oh yeah Sony is soooo poor. Dude get a life. :D

[Sarcasm]

OMG Jason 360 again.

Jeeze, did the 30 day restriction get lifted already?

[Seraphim]

the fact of the matter is that Sony Pictures, Sony/BMG and SCE all operate as individual companies. If there was more integration with the companies they could actually do great things under the Sony name making all their content exclusive to Sony products (excluding physical media). But the fact is that they all operate individually and this is no secret. As such Sony Pictures is going to do whatever it is that's in their best interest which means they want their content available in each and every way possible. So I'm saying there's definitely validity to this article...

[RememberThe357]

Sony makes money by having their movies on netflix, and they want their movies on netflix. However, they do want to make sure they're getting the most money they can.

This is business people. That is how it works. It will get resolved soon and you will be able to watch all the Superbad and 007 you want.

[ultimolu]

...Scarred?
There's a huge difference between scarred and scared Jason.

And no, they're not scared of the big, bad, hairy wolf that's Microsoft.

[SaiyanFury]

@ Jason 360

Sir, are you completely daft? Sony is larger than Microsoft, in general and has more money invested in studios and various other pursuits. They have an entire division devoted just to electronics. An entire division given to marketing (albeit they seem to come up a bit weak in this area). Sony has been around since the 1940s and owns movie studios, game studios, music studios, what have you. MS has been around since the 80s. A bit younger than Sony and most of their money lies tied into PC OS development and the Xbox, with a smaller division tied into Zune development. Sony is one of the largest corporations on the planet, and they certainly don't have a pile of financial woes, as you seem to claim. As for the deal between MS and Netflix, Sony owns Columbia studios and as such won't allow profits to go to their competitors. If MS reaches some agreement with them, then fine. But to say they (Sony) has financial woes and needs every penny or yen it can get out of Microsoft is a very shortsighted statement.

[thenickel]

It doesn't matter how much bigger or smaller Sony is from MS and that discussion is irrelevant. This all boils down to proper licensing and something I'm sure that Sony,and netflix will get figured out. If MS and Sony both started power tripping then thing could get very ugly fast and more so for Sony. Regardless of these issues though I'm simply loving the netflix feature now available through my 360 and can't wait to see Some Sony movies pop up.

[Ilikegames76]

Before making foolish comments, learn to read the article first. Sony isn't playing dirty yet. Maybe you don't know the extend of Sony's media domination. If Sony really wants to play dirty, it's game over for MS.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

I use Netflix through my PS3.

Linux FTW, BABY!!!

[CloudsEnd]

HELL YES! HIGH FIVE MY PAL!

*high five*

[realill]

Does Linux on PS3 plays Full HD movies without issues?

[Bnet343]

realill has a point

[pp]

F*ck u don't need you sh*tting F*ckin movies on xbox360 ass hole.F*ck head.

[TheColbertinator]

Chill out dude.Its just politics.Besides its all about the games.

[drdistracto707]

wow, you have temper problems

-1 bubble until you chill out lol

[Kush_Reaper]

Cool down clown. You don't want any movies right? besides it's all about the games.

OBAMA!!!

[VMAN_01]

MS fights dirty all the time why you so surprised when Sony wants to do it for once.

[Madgunner]

if u think Sony has done more dirty tactics then MS u need to get off that crack

[madjedi]

Actually they never proved sony payed anyone off for exclusive movies rights for blu ray, it was speculated but never proven.

But toshiba and ms were caught paying paramount and dreamworks for transformers and shrek 3 and other titles exclusive to hddvd for 18 months, that was proven.

Nice attempt though, funny how you forgot that one.

[Madgunner]

time for you to get rickrolled kid first of all you must learn how to read and stop being a Fanboy no where in my post did i say sony does NOT use dirty tactics... and yes i knew about the goat why did u even bring up devil may cry ff13 tekken and R5 when i never even slightly mentioned those games... so i guess rushing a console so that u can be first in line in this console war which ULTIMATELY lead to the 33 percent RROD rate isint a form of a dirty tactic. i like how the only thing you threw in ... was a sacrificing of the goat. instead of saying something like Sony makes its consumers pay to play online.. oh no im sorry thats MS... no triple AAA titles.. need a remind you how HOrrific the 360s launch line up was... anyways i think its time for your bedtime... peace

EDIT PS: thanks Madjedi i knew i was forgetting something

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Sony never payed anyone for exclusive Blu-ray support. When Disney moved over because of previous good relations with Sony, so did many other studios...most of which prefer Sony because they support the studios in return. Also, they're smarter business-wise. The PS3 was on Blu-ray's side. How could it not win?

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

How is the goat stunt playing dirty? It was completely legal and didn't slight Microsoft at all.

Microsoft is involved in more lawsuits than Nintendo, Sony, Disney, Walmart, and McDonalds combined.

[RememberThe357]

To become a monopoly you need to strong arm everyone thinking of entering the market. That is not easy, and you need to do some pretty uncool things to keep your market share.

But hey, they provide a lot of job here in Washington so I can't be too hard on them.

LeonSKennedy4Life: Great comments. Gotta give you some bubbles for those two.

[InMyOpinion]

How do you explain Sony's DRM scandal?

Or their fake viral marketing campaign All I Want for Xmas is A PSP? http://www.youtube.com/watc...

How about when they tried to trick us to believe that their E3 2005 trailer for Motorstorm was in-game, which was later revealed to be rendered.

And then they did it again with Killzone 2. I'm not saying anything about the games, it's the lying tactics I'm pointing out here.

Rumble is not needed. Here, pay for it!

Look at the pic.

[thereapersson]

Sony never PROMISED any of that stuff. Besides, how the hell can you be mad at Sony for providing even ONE HDMI port in their console, when it took Microsoft an entire hardware REVISION to include HDMI in EVERY console, despite it "not being needed"?

Also, who on earth do you know who plays consoles on more than one TV at once? That whole pre-launch console spec BS is ridiculous. You can't fault Sony for any of that, unless you really did want all that in there and wouldn't have minded paying MORE than 599 dollars for a PS3 at launch. Sony STILL to this day gets lambasted for the price of the system; how do you think all that tech would have gone over had the system costed even more?

[DailyAddict]

Now, I normally have a pretty open mind in regards to all things gaming, but this was of course a power move against Microsoft. The launch date for NXE has been public for quite some time, so Sony could have pulled the movies whenever they liked. Instead, it just "coincidentally" happened to be the same day that NXE launched. That's obviously something Sony wanted Xbox 360 gamers to experience when booting up their consoles. I can't tell you how many friends called me and said that 75% of their Instant Queue's in Netflix were wiped out because that 75% were all Sony movies.

However, this won't be permanent. The great thing about Sony is that even though 360 is competition, Sony is in the business of making money and they don't just look at one brand; they consider the entire company.

What's going to happen is that Sony just indirectly sent a very big message to Microsoft that apparently quite a lot of their gamers had Sony owned movies in their Queue and now that those movies aren't there, they've almost rendered Netflix completely useless for 360 (seeing as how there are ZERO new movies and the best older movies are mostly Sony owned in some regard). So, Microsoft will see that a lot of those movies were Sony's and will pay Sony higher royalties to license them.

I guarantee those movies will be back by the beginning of the year at the latest.

[Arsenal4Ever]

Microsoft pay devs to push down the quality of PS3 titles.

[ReBurn]

I'm sure you have concrete proof of that.

[ultimolu]

In the future?
Most likely never.

[kwyjibo]

I clearly stated the reasons why Sony wouldn't do this in the original thread at http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-... .

I also clearly spelt out why had this perceived move been true that it would have been anti-competitive and anti-consumer. Yet idiot Sony retards still championed it, championing the very business policies that were detrimental to consumers as a whole.

These are the same idiots who'd like it if the only music you could play on your Walkman came from Sony BMG. The ones who think that eBay trying to force Australian users to adopt Paypal only was a good thing.

[ReBurn]

I don't understand why people can't see that the world is bigger than video games?