Netflix executives mentioned that the company is no longer interested in adding video games to the company"s rental service options during Wednesday"s fourth quarter earnings call, as reported by VentureBeat. The executives from the company did not comment on why this conclusion was reached.
The video game rental service was to be a part of Qwikster, the short-lived spin-off that would have separated the mail rental and online streaming services into two separate companies, with the Netflix brand name to remain the online streaming half. The plan, announced in September 2011, was wildly unpopular, especially when users learned that the new Qwikster-branded mail rental service would not integrate with the recommendations, rental queue and billing systems of the streaming service. Qwikster was quickly killed less than a month later before it even got off the ground, and the video game rental service apparently along with it.
This surely comes as good news to almost-competitor GameFly, the de facto video game mail rental service, though maybe not such good news to some subscribers who live far away from GameFly"s distribution centers and were hoping for an alternative with better turnaround times.
It was also mentioned during the call that Netflix is not interested in offering a streaming/cloud video game service (like OnLive).