Netflix will be adding videos games to their rental service and renaming the DVD side of the business Qwikster.
Reed Hastings, Co-founder and CEO of Netflix, sent out an email to its members late Sunday and the Internet exploded. In it, he apologizes for not explaining the recent price hike well enough to keep people happy and to try and stop the company’s hemorrhaging at the stock market. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have helped since the stocks dropped another 7% today. Netflix stock has been cut in half in the last two months with their push towards streaming and shows no signs of stopping. The majority of commenters on the official announcement page have either been confused over the announcement or even more annoyed with the company’s recent moves.
Netflix is now being split into two completely separate companies. The Netflix half will stick with strictly streaming movies and TV shows. A new company called Qwikster will take over the DVD by mail side of business. The prices will stay the same for both services, but the billing will be completely separate now. The most interesting news to come out of all of this to us though is that Netflix, now Qwikster, will finally be offering video games in their mail service. No word on pricing or how many titles they will expect to have at launch, but we expect to hear all of that soon. We do know it will be carrying games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and the Wii. The Qwikster website will be launching in a few weeks so hopefully we will learn more then.
