Remember when Netflix was a scrappy insurgent fresh to the fray of the home “video” wars? It wasn’t that long ago, and yet now it seems like they are this lurching behemoth, wrought with high level blunders caused my short sighted decisions. The list is long and already embedded in you, but essentially Quikster is the crack that has splintered the deepest, contributing heavily to a 2/3 drop in the value of Netflix stock over the last 6 months.
Today the lingering wrath of Quikster struck again as the company CEO Reed Hastings let it be know that Netflix had killed off plans to rent out video games, an idea that was born alongside Quikster as a part of the by-mail rental service but one that many thought might stick around after Quiksters embarrassing and “quik” end. Why the assumption? Well, Netflix’s primary competitors offer video game rentals, with Redbox offering them at their kiosks and Blockbuster offering them through a by-mail program that is similar to Netflix’s own.
The move, which likely serves as another disappointment to loyal Netflix users who have endured fee hikes and dashed promises over the last half year, comes at a time when some are saying that the rental giant is under the gun from both studios and users. Earlier this month Netflix accepted a doubling of the waiting period that they must adhere to before making Warner Brothers DVDs and Blu Rays available to their customers, a blow that came on the heels of HBO’s decision to end the practice of giving Netflix preferred pricing for rental copies.
The Good News
Yes, there actually is some. While gamers may rightly be soured by Netflix’s abandonment of them, movie fans have a reason to be excited as Hastings hinted at the possibility of streaming 3-D in the near future.
“On streaming, that is definitely something we can do and we will be looking at,” said Hastings.
As for gamers, well, the possibility always exists that Netflix is simply too weary of adding more overhead to a segment of the company with earnings that are expected to decline “forever” in the words of Hastings. Could streaming games be in the future? Possibly but for now the tech doesn’t seem to be there and Netflix is stuck watching as Blockbuster and Redbox capitalize on the gaming market and all the users that come with it.
2 Comments »