Netflix breaking in two, offering game rentals-Split Aborted

[BoringSupreez]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6335391/ne ... Btitle%3B5

It costs extra, sort of like blu-rays, but it's there now. About dang time, I've been saying they should do this for like 6 years.

I wonder if Gamefly's going to be able to withstand this.

[s1mplehumar]

'Bout time. A little competition can't be a bad thing.

::EDIT::

No Dreamcast rentals? Lame.

[Croooow!]

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks Qwikster is a terrible name. I got the email and couldn't glean anything positive for me from it even though it was made to sound like an apology. I was one of their customers who was going to keep both services and pay an extra $5 a month but I can't think of anything positive about having to go to two different websites when the one site was very convenient. It sort of feels like they hope Qwikster dies soon and they drop mailed out DVDs all together.

[Inazuma]

Not sure what I think about this but I am interested to see what happens.

[fastbilly1]

It sort of feels like they hope Qwikster dies soon and they drop mailed out DVDs all together.

I sincerely hope not. Unless they can finally put everything in their library up at one time. But thanks to the production houses that will not happen.

[Luke]

A lot more than this is going on. The CEO has been sounding like a schizophrenic lately in shareholding meetings. If things don't shape up quickly (and offering game rentals will be an incremental loss on profit for sure) Netflix will have the same assets as Blockbuster; none.

Subscribers, stockholders, distributors, and most importantly customers are leaving in the thousands.

Wanna take a risk? Put it all on NFLX and see if they can ride it out.

[Croooow!]

I did find this article very amusing though:

http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix- ... unt-2011-9

[Dakinggamer87]

Not sure what I think about this but I am interested to see what happens.

I feel the same way. I'm wondering how this will affect GameFly in terms of service pricing?

[lisalover1]

I got an email (sent en masse to all Netflix users, obviously), from the president of Netflix, and to be perfectly honest, I really respect him and his company for the message; it takes a lot of guts to admit fault and have some transparency with your customers. It's something that I wish a lot more companies would do in the Here was the email, just for reference:

Dear Chris,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

p.s. I have a slightly longer explanation along with a video posted on our blog, where you can also post comments.

[o.pwuaioc]

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/netflix