Sunday, October 25th 2026
Netflix Reportedly Walked Away After Xbox Asked $800 Million for Its Game IP
Netflix reportedly offered Microsoft $500 million for seven years of exclusive film and TV adaptation rights to Xbox games, but the two sides never reached a middle ground. According to Matthew Belloni's What I'm Hearing newsletter at Puck, which cites three sources, the offer came from Bela Bajaria, Netflix's chief content officer at the time. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and her business affairs team apparently countered at $800 million. Bajaria was recently let go and is being replaced by former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice, and with her gone, the Netflix offer is said to be off the table. Netflix CFO Spence Neumann was reportedly one of the people who thought the price was too high.
Netflix has not commented on the deal, while Xbox told Puck it has seen "record-breaking interest" in its IP and still considers Netflix a valued partner. The two already have Minecraft and Diablo animated series on the way, and Netflix is also working on a Gears of War movie. Instead of one big exclusive package, Xbox is now said to be chasing smaller deals with more partners, which is pretty much what its new XP division was set up to handle earlier this month. That extra licensing money would probably be welcome right now. Xbox has missed Microsoft's executive pay target for the fifth time in six years, just lost its first chief operating officer, and Sharma recently told staff the division won't survive without new IP. Rice is also expected to go after more IP deals at Netflix, so we can expect the two companies to end up talking again.
Sources:
What I'm Hearing Newsletter - Puck, via TweakTown
Netflix has not commented on the deal, while Xbox told Puck it has seen "record-breaking interest" in its IP and still considers Netflix a valued partner. The two already have Minecraft and Diablo animated series on the way, and Netflix is also working on a Gears of War movie. Instead of one big exclusive package, Xbox is now said to be chasing smaller deals with more partners, which is pretty much what its new XP division was set up to handle earlier this month. That extra licensing money would probably be welcome right now. Xbox has missed Microsoft's executive pay target for the fifth time in six years, just lost its first chief operating officer, and Sharma recently told staff the division won't survive without new IP. Rice is also expected to go after more IP deals at Netflix, so we can expect the two companies to end up talking again.
10 Comments on Netflix Reportedly Walked Away After Xbox Asked $800 Million for Its Game IP
If netflix wanted access to ZeniMax Media/Bethesda and Activision Blizzard King IP. They are gonna need to pay to play and even more so since they want a 7 year exclusive contract.
$500mil is insulting seeing as they (netflix) are currently valued at $270.4billion. Although they've not been doing great financially for the past few years but a lot of that is due to covid lock downs being a thing of the past and everyone being back in the office.
It would also help if they stopped ruining what can be considered evergreen franchises in pursuit of the modern audience™️ but its not like im the CEO that keeps greenlighting things that is losing the company tonnes of money.
I hope Asha walked out of that meeting. Because thats what I would have done.
For example, The Squid Game.
Its the all characters, their likenesses, the worlds/universes those characters exist in and some of the lore that establishes those characters before they throw it in the bin and do what they want with it.
Also a SEVEN YEAR EXCLUSIVITY is a hell of a long time to lock away so much IP all at once. If the contract was signed. no-one else outside of netflix would be able to use the IP to make any tv shows or movies. You basically have Netflix holding a temporary monopoly over filming production and adaptation rights over whatever xbox IP they want and that is bad for the consumer.
Do you remember in the 90s when LucasArts were handing out licenses to just about every studio who wanted to make a starwars game? We were absolutely spoilt rotten. Then Disney happened and EA had exclusivity over it and we barely got a game every 3-5 years and I dont need to tell you what EA did with the rights to SW.
The CEOs of netflix might as well have rolled up and spat in each of Asha's eyes and face with such a lowball offer like that because they clearly didnt want the rights to the IPs enough.
Sounds awful. How does Netflix still have such a large user base?