Here’s Your New Theater in a Box
One
million Xbox users have watched 1.5 billion minutes of Netflix movies
and TV episodes in about 3 months, says Microsoft. All these Xbox LIVE
Gold members have downloaded and activated the application from Netflix
since two companies joined hands last November.
Netflix
is the world's leading online movie rental service. The Netflix
application offers Xbox LIVE Gold members the ability to instantly watch
movies and TV episodes from Netflix on a television via the Xbox 360
video game and entertainment system.
In
November last year,
Microsoft had released
New Xbox Experience to transform Xbox
360 consoles with software. The move aimed to help home buyers get
games, movies, and TV shows and share them with friends across the globe
through Xbox LIVE, a community-based service.
Other
players are also quite aggressive in the community-based gaming and
entertainment market. In December last year, Sony Computer
Entertainment’s had released
PlayStation Home Beta service for PlayStation 3.
PlayStation Home is a 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that
allows users to interact, communicate, and share gaming experiences.
PlayStation Home delivers visual graphics and rich gaming social
experiences on the PS3 platform.
The
console-based entertainment market has been gaining momentum. Last
month, Microsoft had
revealed that life-to-date unit sales of
Xbox 360 systems climbed to 28 million consoles
worldwide. Its price starts at $199.
The
popularity of console-based games and fun can be assessed from the fact
that Halo 3, a video game developed for
Microsoft Xbox 360 console, grossed $300 million
worldwide in its first week of launch. Even a Hollywood blockbuster will
be thrilled to generate this kind of revenue.
According to DFC Intelligence, a global digital games market tracker,
combined cumulative
worldwide sales for Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony
PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii systems are expected to be
180-210 million units by 2012.
Microsoft reveals that more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes are
currently available to watch instantly from Netflix, with more on the
way. A growing percentage of choices that are available to watch
instantly are also available in HD.
Xbox
LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix unlimited members can watch
movies and TV episodes streamed instantly from Netflix on Xbox LIVE for
no additional fee.
Netflix
has similar content delivery arrangement with consumer electronics
companies like Samsung.
Consumers can stream movies
and TV episodes from the Netflix Web site directly to their living rooms
via
Samsung's BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 Blu-ray disc
players,
Xbox
LIVE connects over 17 million members across 26 countries to each other.
It’s also a unified online social network, according to Microsoft.
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