Netflix No Longer 360 Exclusive

Netflix and Sony announced today that the movie streaming service will be coming to PS3 as soon as November.  The service will be available to PS3 owners for a few due to there be no equivilent to Xbox Live Gold and that initially you will need a disc that Netflix will provide to activate the service.

This news relates to Nintendo in that Michael Pachter today said that "We believe that the exclusive arrangement limits Netflix ability to appear on the 'dashboard' of the PS3 or Wii.  We anticipate that a similar arrangement will be announced for the Wii in the next 12 months."

It was just a matter of time before Netflix found a way to get around the exclusivity to consoles that Microsoft had and it appears that a similar service might be heading to Wii in the next year.  Would you watch movies over your Wii console if the service was available?  Do you like the idea of having a disc to access the service or would you prefer it to be a channel on the Wii's menu?

Source: GoNintendo, MTV Multiplayer

Michael Pacter Once Again Predicts A Price Cut

Michael Pachter, analyst for Wedbush Morgan is once again announcing that Wii will get a price cut. This time he says it will be no later than November.

We estimate sell-through of 240,000 Wii hardware units (down 47% from last year), 205,000 Xbox 360 (up 5% from last year), and 160,000 PS3 consoles (a 14% year-over-year unit decline) as the overall sales decline trends continued until price cuts spurred demand in the last few days of the month. Sony cut the PS3 price in the last week of the month, and we expect to see PS3 sales grow substantially in September. We do not think that Nintendo’s Wii hardware forecast is achievable without a price cut, and as long as the Wii remains at its November 2006 launch price of $249.99, we expect continued year-over-year declines for that console’s sales. We expect a Wii price cut no later than November. - Wedbush Morgan analyst, Michael Pachter

I don't know how many different news stories I've heard where someone says that Wii has to receive a drop in price to stay competitive or to meet sales goals. Every time, the rumour is countered by Nintendo saying that it won't happen or they're happy with sales figures to that point. Eventually, though, you'll have to give him credit. At least once he's going to be right.