A few days ago, the Internet was abuzz with news that Sony’s subsidiary movie house, Columbia, had mysteriously pulled its content from the NXE Netflix streaming library. At the time, we weren’t sure what was going on; then we found out it was licensing issues.
Since then, Sony has released a statement on the issue. According to Sony:
This issue is not specific to Xbox or any other individual platform. 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.
Really, Sony? It’s not specific to the Xbox 360, yet all SPE content still works fine on every other streaming source I’ve tried. And it’s a very big coincidence that the licensing issues happened the day before NXE launched…
I, for one, don’t buy that it was a coincidence for a second. Sure, it may be a licensing issue, but Sony was well aware of it the entire time. Their plan may have been to partially cripple the NXE so people would spend more time with their PS3s (as if Microsoft’s RRoD hasn’t done that enough), but in reality all it has accomplished is upsetting a lot of gamer fans who happen to love movies -- like yours truly, who happens to write about movies in addition to games. These are the console wars, Sony, so please keep your other non-gaming properties out of it.
These conspiracy theory claims are the product of me and only me. No one else on GameCyte is as jaded as I am, and not everyone involved shares my views. Unless they do. In the event that aforementioned theory is incorrect, I will promptly apologize to Sony and eat my fist.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Yeah, I too really, really doubt this is all just some big coincidence that this happened like it did, when it did.
November 26th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Reminds me of when Sony said that they couldn't put rumble into the PS3 SixAxis controller because of technical difficulties with the motion detection hardware. In truth it was a licensing issue there, too, where Sony refused to license the rumble technology from Immersion (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony). When they finally paid Immersion and received a new patent license, the mysterious incompatibility between rumble and motion sensing (which never affected the WiiMote of course) was miraculously resolved and the Dualshock 3 was released!
I like Sony products, but they have no problem being blatently dishonest and I'm getting VERY tired of that. Sony is one company I will never buy stock in because they speak out of the corner of their mouth. As an investor I would NOT want a company I had an interest in attempting to deceive me.