Netflix reportedly offered US$500 million for seven years of exclusive rights to adapt Xbox games, and Xbox wanted US$800 million. For a platform shedding staff, studios and hardware sales, that's a hell of an ask. Netflix doesn't need it.
Puck reports Netflix offered US$500M for a seven-year exclusive on Xbox game adaptations, and Xbox countered at US$800M. Neither company has confirmed the figures.
The offer died when Netflix content chief Bela Bajaria left in a shake-up. Xbox says Netflix is still a "valued partner".
Xbox hardware revenue is down, about 3,200 jobs were cut in July and a Series X now costs US$799.99. Its own CEO calls the business "not healthy".
Xbox's biggest screen hits live elsewhere: Fallout is on Amazon and the Minecraft movie is Warner Bros'. Halo was cancelled by Paramount+.
Netflix keeps landing game hits without Xbox. Edgerunners 2 hit #1 in the US on third-party charts last week.
Xbox reportedly looked at Netflix, the biggest streamer on the planet, offering half a billion US dollars for the rights to turn its games into shows and films, and said: not enough. According to Puck, Xbox wanted US$800 million. Netflix walked. Good call, Netflix.
Puck’s Matthew Belloni, citing three unnamed sources, reports that Netflix offered US$500 million for seven years of exclusive film and TV adaptation rights to Xbox’s games. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and her business affairs team countered at US$800 million. The offer came from Netflix content chief Bela Bajaria, and Puck says CFO Spencer Neumann was among those who thought it was “too rich”. When Bajaria left in this month’s Netflix shake-up (around 1,000 layoffs, plus the exit of film boss Dan Lin), the offer left with her.
Neither company has confirmed the numbers. Netflix declined to comment. Xbox’s statement didn’t deny anything: “We have received record-breaking interest in our I.P.; Netflix is a valued partner and we are excited for the forthcoming release of our Minecraft and Diablo animated series together, among other adaptations.” Puck says Xbox is now “pursuing smaller deals with more partners”. Which franchises were on the table hasn’t been reported.
Asking for a 60% premium is a bold move when you’re winning. Xbox is not winning:
So this is a platform holder shedding staff and studios, with shrinking hardware sales, telling Netflix its IP is worth more than half a billion. Bold.
Here’s the problem with “exclusive”. Xbox’s track record on screen is patchy, and the hits are already living somewhere else:
So US$800 million over seven years, around US$114 million a year, would have bought Netflix a lock on everything else in the cupboard. Maybe that’s Elder Scrolls, Forza, Sea of Thieves or StarCraft. That’s not nothing, but the crown jewels are already signed to other people. And rights don’t make shows. Netflix would still have to spend the real money actually producing them.
Netflix is arguably the best home for game adaptations right now, and it got there without Xbox. Its slate includes Arcane (League of Legends), Castlevania, Devil May Cry, Splinter Cell: Deathwatch (season 2 confirmed), The Witcher and a live-action Assassin’s Creed series in production.
And look at last week. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 dropped on 20 October and went straight to number two globally and number one in the US on third-party charts (Netflix’s official numbers aren’t out yet). Reviews are more mixed than season one’s near-perfect run, but people are watching. It’s also helped drive Cyberpunk 2077 back up to its second-highest player count since launch. That’s what a good adaptation does: it sells the game. CD Projekt, Studio Trigger and Netflix got there with a deal signed back in 2020, not an eight-figure-a-year lockout.
Xbox is dying, and asking for US$800 million is what a dying platform does: it tries to cash in the IP because the hardware isn’t paying the bills. Hardware is in freefall, the console costs eight hundred US bucks, the studios are being sold off and the CEO is publicly calling the business unhealthy. Then Xbox looks at the one company willing to write a half-billion-dollar cheque and asks for 60% more. Read the room.
For Netflix, this would’ve been a bad deal at US$500 million, let alone US$800 million. The biggest Xbox adaptations are already at Amazon and Warner Bros., and the Netflix ones it’s got are taking years to get made. Meanwhile, Netflix proves every few months that it can turn a game into a hit with the right partner, whether that’s Riot, CD Projekt, Konami or Capcom. Edgerunners is the template: one great IP, one great studio, and a game that gets a second life off the back of it. You don’t need a seven-year exclusive for that, and you definitely don’t need to pay a premium to the platform in the worst shape of the three. Netflix’s CFO called it “too rich”. We’d call it a lucky escape.
Would you watch an Elder Scrolls or Forza show, or is Xbox overrating its own back catalogue? Tell us in the comments, or bring your hottest takes to the GetRekt Discord.
Leaked footage shows a Chinese workshop stripping brand-new RTX 5090s, Founders Editions included, down to the GPU and memory and rebuilding them as b...
In 2013 Blizzard told fans they didn't want old-school WoW. On 5 November (NZ time) it launches World of Warcraft: Forever, a never-ending level-60 Az...
Edgerunners 2 on Netflix, the free Update 2.5 and a 70% off sale have pushed Cyberpunk 2077 past 160,000 concurrent Steam players. That beats the orig...
Comments 0
Quick check before we post that