NXE Netflix streaming loses Sony's Columbia Pictures movies

According to Joystiq, NXE will launch this morning with a service devoid of "hundreds" of Columbia films. Why? Because they're owned by Sony, silly.

MTV clarified the removal of a swathe of movies from the service is indeed a licensing issue, carrying the following quote from Netflix comms boss Steve Swasey:

"As watching instantly becomes a more prominent part of the Netflix service, our goal is to have all of our streaming content licensed for all of our partner devices. We're doing well in this area, but it will take some time before we fully achieve that goal.

Today, titles regularly come in and out of license and there is a natural ebb and flow to what we have on license at any given point in time. In the case of Xbox 360, a few hundred titles are temporarily unavailable to be streamed via the Xbox game console. Those titles are still available to be watched on subscribers' computers and on TVs via other partner devices, and we hope they'll be licensed for Xbox 360 shortly."