Netflix and Xbox Live Partnership Is a Win-Win Situation, Says Analyst

The console war is still going strong, despite the fact that all of the three consoles, the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, have been around for quite some time. Each manufacturer is desperately trying to make its product the most attractive one on the market and, in order to achieve this goal, will do just about anything.

While Nintendo is relying on the coolness and fun factor of the popular Wii and Sony is trying to make its console the most attractive despite its high price tag, Microsoft seems to have stricken gold with its Xbox 360. This was the result of a major price cut, which made the console very attractive in the eyes of the cost-conscious customers, and of the fact that the New Xbox Experience was launched.

Along with the new revamp of the user interface, the North American company also signed a partnership with Netflix in order to stream movies directly on users’ consoles. This deal is a win-win situation for both companies, says Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. He talked with GameDaily about this contract and how, in the near future, Netflix would gain a considerable profit from Xbox 360 subscribers.

“We think that subscriber growth will continue at super-normal levels for quite some time. We believe that the Xbox Live Gold membership is a proverbial gold mine of potential members, and expect to see as many as 1 million join as Netflix members in the next year,” he said. “Beyond that, we note that Microsoft is still selling a large number of Xbox 360 units (we estimate that it will sell another 5 – 6 million in the U.S. in 2009), with conversion of around 35% of these owners to Xbox Live Gold membership.”

Knowing that the Xbox 360 is one of the most attractive consoles out there in terms of price, despite what Sony seems to believe, and seeing as how users can easily subscribe to Netflix and avoid the problems encountered with renting DVDs or other things from the regular stores, this is certainly something that a lot of users will find as a winning argument in favor of Microsoft's console.