Netflix movie, TV ep streaming coming to Xbox

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 15 July 2008 08:17

Your IT - Entertainment

Microsoft needs a boost for the Xbox 360. While it seems to have got over quality problems that required the company to replace many early consoles suffering from the so-called Red Ring of Death (RROD), it seems to have lost sales momentum with the (admittedly cheaper) Wii being well ahead on cumulative sales and the PlayStation 3 getting an edge on the 360 in terms of monthly sales in 2008.

This may have been Microsoft's motivation for the recent Xbox 360 price cuts.

That said, the 360 is doing well against the PS3 on a cumulative basis: around 20 million Xbox 360s have been sold, compared with some 14 million PS3s.

The capitulation of HD DVD to Blu-ray probably didn't help, as Microsoft had backed the former rather than the Sony-led alternative. The PS3 has always featured a Blu-ray drive, and for some time it was cheaper than a stand-alone Blu-ray player.

With questions being asked about the Wii's long-term future in terms of the risk that young fans will look for a more sophisticated platform as they get older, Microsoft and Sony will continue to duke it out over the 'serious gamer' market.

Sony recently announced that its long foreshadowed movie download service for the PlayStation 3 would start sometime this (northern) summer. PS3 owners in Japan and Europe will have to wait for an unspecified period for their chance to join in.