Netflix Coming To Sony PS3 145
itwbennett writes "'Microsoft has always seemed rather enthusiastic when it comes to throwing around the word 'exclusive,' and here is another case in point,' says blogger Peter Smith. Netflix and Sony have announced that Netflix streaming is coming to the Sony PlayStation 3 as early as next month. Back in August, when Microsoft was rolling out its new dashboard update, one of the features it was talking up was Netflix streaming, says Smith, and it said, 'This exclusive partnership offers you the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via Xbox 360. Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience...' Apparently, in Microsoft parlance, 'exclusive partnership' means 'we launched it first' and not 'we inked a deal with Netflix preventing this feature from appearing on the competition's hardware.' All this is good news for PS3 owners who can now sign up to be notified of Netflix availability for their system."
More (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:exclusive partnership (Score:3, Interesting)
Methinks you don't understand what "exclusive" means.
It doesn't mean "nobody else is doing it".
It means "nobody else is is *allowed* to do it" (examine the root "exclude [wiktionary.org]")
Using BD-Live is the real story (Score:5, Interesting)
The report on this this that I saw at ars technica [arstechnica.com] said this is implemented using BD-Live. If that's right, then it means that any fully featured BluRay player could do it.
So Netflix will have effectively co-opted the next generation physical media installed base for their online distribution system. I think that's a pretty big deal compared semi-supporting one more console, don't you?
Re:Inclusive (Score:1, Interesting)
An 'exclusive partnership' normally indicates a contract done between two parties where the one party is guaranteed the only access to something. See AT&T and the iPhone in the U.S., for example, or the NFL's deal with DirectTV.
It's quite a different animal from a newspaper 'exclusive' or an 'exclusive interview', where a contract is not involved.
Now, it could be that they did have a one-year deal that is about to or has expired, in which case you would be entirely correct. However, such contracts are usually longer term, and if Microsoft is throwing around the term 'exclusive partnership' without having a contract, then they're giving a heck of a lot of people the idea that they will be the only ones that will have that capability for a long, long time when that is not actually the case.
Re:Handy for some, less so for others (Score:2, Interesting)
insist that the genii will fit back in that darn bottle
There's a special circle of hell for people who talk at the movies and those who do what you just did.