Netflix dropped a bombshell on its customers late last night announcing it was splitting it's DVD by mail service and streaming service into two separate companies. While a major price increase was announced just months ago, this announcement was supposed to be the grand plan all along...or so it seems. With that Netflix is becoming a streaming media only company while their new DVD service is being called Qwikster.
This will be two separate websites and two separate accounts and two separate bills. Not exactly convenient.
That said there is a silver lining in all this for gamers - Qwikster will be offering Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii games. This is big news because for the mots part, Gamefly has had a monopoly in the United States on game rentals, even though Blockbuster offers it with their service. Netflix has also gained a lot of transaction with console gamers thanks to the integration with every console this generation and even the Nintendo 3DS.
Qwikster is launching "in a few weeks" but it's not clear yet how existing Netflix subscribers will transition to this service. It's been a bumpy few months for Netflix, a service that has been a golden child for quite some time. It'll be interesting to see how they come out of all this "transition" in the coming months.