Movie Rental Could Come to the Xbox

The Xbox is in many ways a wonderful machine. Sure, it has its hardware failures which are a bit more frequent than they should be. And its development has cost Microsoft probably more money than it can make from selling it. But the Xbox, together with other current gen consoles, could be the sign of a revolution in the way we experience media, including but not limited to games.

Netflix, a company that offers movie rental services, has admitted to conducting a poll of its customers regarding the possibility of offering video rentals via the Xbox download feature. Netflix is a Web 2.0 business, mainly because it has no real world video stores and all the renting of movies is done either via the Internet, with secure downloading connections and electronic payment, or via the snail mail services. So, it is in a unique position to take advantage of the distribution channels that target not only PC users, but also game consoles users.

Late last year, Reed Hastings, who is the Chief Executive Officer and the president of Netflix, declared that his company was considering delivering movies to its subscribers via all Internet connected consoles, as well as looking into dedicated set-up boxes and high-definition DVD players to stream movies. A partnership has recently been developed with LG Electronics to create an Internet connected set top box capable of downloading movies from Netflix.

The results of the customer poll were not released to the public and Netflix declined to comment on the possibility of a partnership with Xbox console maker Microsoft. The Redmond company also declined any knowledge of a talk with Netflix. So, if there's a possibility of having movie rentals using your Xbox it's still a rather remote one. Could Sony be more receptive to such a proposition made regarding its PlayStation 3 console?

If further details emerge, we'll be sure to comment. In the meanwhile, drop us a line and tell us whether you'd like to rent movies using your game console.

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