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Microsoft Responds To PS3 Netflix Announcement
Microsoft has responded to the announcement that Netflix will be made available on PS3, noting that it won’t be dropping the requirement to hold an Xbox Live Gold membership in order to access the movie streaming service via Xbox 360.
When the service launches in November for Sony’s console, PS3 owners will not be required to pay an additional charge outside of the monthly Netflix subscriber fee of $8.99, unlike Xbox 360 owners who need an Xbox Live Gold membership.
"The Netflix experience on Xbox Live is unique and reflects our commitment for social entertainment,” a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN. “We believe we offer an experience today that is a generation ahead of what others are offering. For a little over $4 a month Xbox Live Gold membership is hands-down the best value in home entertainment, and gives you exclusive access multi-player gaming and early demos as well as Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Last.fm, 1 vs 100 and more."
Netflix on Xbox 360 does hold at least one advantage over the upcoming PS3 offering. PS3 owners will have to use a Blu-ray disc containing a Netflix access program in order to “instantly” stream movies and TV episodes via their console. This compares to the service offered on the 360, which appears on the user’s Xbox dashboard and requires no special disc for access. Analyst Michael Pachter said yesterday that "this intermediate step” for the PS3 offering “was taken in order to comply with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 exclusive arrangement with Netflix”.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I used to believe that paying for XBL was not a bad thing because XBL was a good service, hardly any lag and such things like that. But down the road it just gets annoying. NXE is a big laggy Interface I like the old one much more. I also hate the fact that u just pretty much pay 50-60 bucks a year to just play online with other people, or to get early demo access. While u still have to pay for many others things.
While PS3 is free and u pay for what u want. You buy things with real money. I think Netflix would be a whole lot better on PS3 cause there would be more varieties of movies due to Sony owning Columbia house which doesnt appear on 360's netflix.
Don't get me wrong I love all 3 of my systems. But lately Ive been getting games for the ps3. The wii.... not so much... But then u have good exclusives like Left 4 Dead 2 which I hope has more content and a better story/scenario then the last.
corporate worded language for we are idiots....
While Sony really seemed to have raised their game lately, M$ seem to be doing everything they can to drive their platform into the ground, i'll not deny that while i own both systems i do most of my gaming on the 360, and that i feel the online service offered by Xbox is better than that offered by playstation, whether it's superior enough to be worth paying for is debatable, probably not, but as all my friends own xboxs and only one owns a PS3 i don't really have much choice in the matter. What concerns me is that M$ could so easily give the xbox a version of internet explorer so why haven't they? If they are in profit with each xbox they sell why raise the price in the UK? Why have they made no move to counter the fantastic gains made by Sony in the last few months?
If it weren't for project Natal and the rumored deal with AMD about a new Xbox i'd be starting to think M$ are about to end their involvement in the console business and just write it all off as a costly mistake.
Does anybody know why the ps3 will need to use a blu-ray disc? I would have thought it would work the same on either system?
Its only supposed to be until 2010 due to some kind of exclusive deal with Microsoft.
"The Netflix experience on Xbox Live is unique and reflects our commitment for social entertainment” How so? I've been streaming Netflix to my 360 (pre-NXE) and PS3 with MediaMall's PlayOn Server for quite some time now.
Regardless, Boxee still does a significantly better job than the 360 with its integrated searching, browsing, and queue management. If the PS3 does any of those, it's automatically better than the 360's "experience" and the Roku player.
Aren't Facebook and Twitter free on PS through the browser?
Oh dear.....
They actually felt the need to "respond" to this? What a collection of assholes.
Ha ha what a joke when will ppl stop and realize that Xbox live is a huge ripoff ? I for 1 wont be renewing my subscription when it runs out. The ONLY thing the 360 has on the PS3 is cross game voice chat and thats it. MS keeps touting these "features" they keep adding but seem to forget that Sony has had these same features since launch via the web browser I can access youtube,Gametrailers,Pandora Radio,Facebook and Twitter damn pretty much the whole internet so if you take a step back via the web browser Sony offers thousands of features more than the 360 ever could and now were recieving netflix with no additional charges accept the 8.99. The most important thing is that Sonys actual online gameplay is alot smother than the 360s as a multiconsole owner I can account for this and alot of ppl agree if any of you have played games like Warhawk or R1 and R2 or even KZ2 and u2 hell even LBP these games are largely lag free and run better than anything on the 360. Most also boast 32 players or MORE . 360 online games are lagfests from Halo 3 to Gears2 damn gears 2 online is still broken after years. So the question is WHAT THE HELL ARE WE PAYING FOR?
I agree entirely, Sony have shown that it is possible to provide a good online service for free (unless they're losing money from it?) so Microsoft ought to follow suit. Alas I suspect that they wont because too many of us (I'm guilty as charged) continue to pay the subscription fee - I particularly like the streaming movies, which is interesting now Sony have the rights to this coming.
Unfortunately I don't think Microsoft will remove online fees without significant changes so I can only hope that Sony's improving services, with movies etc, will cause enough people to not renew their subscriptions that Microsoft take notice. The problem with this is that they still receive money from DLC (which doesn't require Gold subscription) so even if everyone takes their money elsewhere in terms of movies etc, they will still only lose money if they remove subscription fees. (I don't think the dual console owning fraternity is large enough to affect things by deliberately buying multi-platform games on PS3 over 360 because of online fees to make a difference). The only way to actually get them to remove subscription fees would be if us Xbox Live users organise ourselves and boycott the service, I mean including not downloading any DLC etc which they also make money from, then if enough users do that then they will be forced to remove the subscription fee.
Outside of that happening then it won't happen this generation because, even if the PS3 is at a competitive price (so people chose it over 360 due to online fees) then there is still enough of a 360 user base to make it not worth their while removing all those fees to gain the few extra console sales. I suspect we have to hope that Sony has the sense to market their next generation console at a similar price point to the next gen Xbox so that the issue of online fees becomes relevant to the buyer. Assuming consoles don't go the way of the cloud and everything changes!
P.S. Another bugbear with Xbox Live (and Wii Ware) what is it with the silly points thing?! I assume it makes their pricing easier as they can fix points across regions and simply change how much points costs in a given region, rather than modifying each DLC individually. But it's bloody annoying having to work out what something costs because they utilise an arbitrary currency - I guess this is another reason. If Sony can make it possible to buy things in real money, why can't everyone else!
Sony has definitely put a lot of time and effort into their online platform and while not necessarily on par with xbox live offerings and the mindshare that ms controls with regard to online play its only apparently getting better. I have all 3 major consoles and I play my 360 the most hands down by probably 10 to 1 versus either of my other 2 consoles but the main reason for this is since the xbox launched first most of my friends have it and didn't see a point in getting the ps3 when I got that so for that simple reason when I buy a multiplatform game if I intend to play it online I buy the 360 version. If I had more friends playing playstation 3 then Im sure I'd be playing on that system more. I still think that in my experience with both the 360 is the superior offering as far as online matchmaking, lag free gaming and people playing teambased games with microphones (which is a huge one for me). At this rate it appears that microsoft is starting to run into a position where it only has two real options, firstly find some new way to innovate in the online space to really seperate itself as the superior product and thus justify gamers (myself included) paying the 50 a year or its at the very least going to have to make the online play free for both silver and gold and convert gold accounts into accounts that get exclusive dlc free and or early and other premium features while silver has access to those things but at a price. Something like that I think would be a much better alternative to what they are currently doing especially with sony nipping at their heels.