While I agree with the logic of moving the streaming to the 360 (or any device that already has heavy household penetration) rather than new standalone boxes (as we discussed in this thread back in July), I disagree with his assertion that the Xbox Gold Membership is a gold mine for Netflix.
Simply porting the software feature to a common device was enough to find that "goldmine" (do you hear me TiVo?), but if anything the Live Membership requirements are a hinderance to total subscription numbers. Imagine how many casual gamers with Xbox's and no Gold Membership would also sign up for Netflix streaming, but can't or won't because of the Gold Membership requirement?
In truth, the converse is probably the reality. Many folks who were on the fence about a Gold Membership or simply had a silver membership probably upgraded to Gold Memberships when they realized Netflix would be included (as it was in there pre-existing Netflix subscription).
Either way, it was a win-win for Netflix and Microsoft. Count me is as one of the new subscribers (even though I canceled it after one month). If blockbuster moves it's download model to its subscrption model (ie, not streaming, but an actual time restricted downloaded movie file) then I think that's going to be the real winner because the quality will be infinitely better than the Netflix stream. That model is Blu-Ray's real competition.
