Netflix...Denied?

There was a lot of commotion leading up to the release of the interface-makeover that Microsoft dubbed "The New Xbox Experience." With an entirely flashy new user interface to work with and a bunch of cute little dudes and ladies in the form of Avatars to populate your Dashboard, we do indeed have a new Xbox experience. As an added bonus, you can take the adorable Mii-alikes in to games like Scene it?, A Kingdom for Keflings and Uno! But Microsoft's biggest feature is arguably the ability to stream your Netflix queue to your console.

If you've got a Netflix account, you can hop on your Xbox and dive in to a season of 30 Rock at any time. Setting one up isn't particularly tough either (if you've got a credit card and an address), and for a pretty respectable fee you can watch flicks and TV on your console forever. But there's a catch. The New Xbox Experience was launched across 26 countries on November 19, 2008, but the Netflix feature is only offered on American soil – so if you're Canadian, Australian, French, Indian, Finnish or from any other funky foreign land, well, you're SOL. This is an incredible downer when you consider how highly this feature was hyped on the front-end of the "old" Dashboard as well as Major Nelson's podcast, The Gamerscore Blog and just about every news blog on the Intertron. It's easy to point the blame at Microsoft for limiting the appealing offer to its Motherland, but in reality, there's nothing they can do.

Because Netflix doesn't extend their services beyond the United States' borders, Microsoft can't offer digital streaming. It's easy to jump the gun and assume that Microsoft is giving their international audience the shaft, but it boils down to "it's not their service." MS is merely making it easier for Netflix subscribers to access their content digitally. It's tough not to be envious of such a great addition to one's home console, though; the Xbox 360 is evolving from its early days as just a game console to a home entertainment and media hub – without the hassle of having to drive to Blockbuster.

So the finger is pointed at Netflix, whose customer base has is nearing the ten million mark. That's a pretty compelling base of customers, and you've got to assume that an expansion of services would only increase the numbers. Sadly, and expectedly, it boils down to the licensing rights and a concrete focus on the regional market, according to Netflix's Vice President of Corporate Communications, Steve Swasey. "Our distribution partner is the United States Postal Service, and we have concentrated all of our distribution where we can serve millions and millions of customers," he explained when we asked about their disc circulation. Swasey also clarifies that expanding beyond the border – both digitally and physically – isn't a priority. Surprisingly, they "haven't discussed anything with international expansion."

So the concentration is, and will remain, the United States of America.

But what about streaming? Sadly, it's not as straightforward as "It's the Internet, dudes." Because of licensing and rights management, Netflix can't just stream their content to potential international customers – Xbox or otherwise. "When we expanded the service to include the streaming, we did it with the license to stream to our customers... [who are] focused domestically in the States," said Swasey. In fact, you can't even take your laptop across the Canadian border if you want to access your queue – Netflix offerings are also tied to American ISPs, making it impossible for me to catch up on The Office when trying to stream through a Telus or Shaw connection up here in the cold clutches of Canada.

It's a bummer, but what can we foreigners do? It looks like I, as well as the rest of the non-USA residents of the world, am left out in the cold for the time being in regards to streaming Netflix on my gaming console. With no plans being cooked up to expand the movie and television rental service beyond the border – or across the sea, for that matter – we'll have to put up with the fact that Netflix won't let Microsoft stream content to other countries, since Netflix themselves have restricted distribution, courtesy of studios limiting their license.

It looks like foreigners will just have to spend less time streaming new movies, and more time catching up on the holiday avalanche. Shucks.