MS secures Universal catalogue for 360

By Robert Purchese Published 26 February, 2009

Bourne! Shaun! Carlito! Scarface!

Microsoft has begun offering films by Universal Pictures for download from Xbox Live Marketplace.

The deal, unveiled by UK Xbox boss Neil Thompson today, sees the likes of The Bourne Supremacy, Carlito's Way, Shaun of the Dead, Hellboy II and The Chronicles of Riddick join the service. We've cobbled together the full, initial list below.

Downloading a newly released film in HD costs 540 MSP (GBP 4.50), whereas SD films cost 360 MSP (GBP 3). Older HD films cost 380 MSP (GBP 3.20), while shelved SD films cost 250 MSP (GBP 2.10).

Thompson also made mention of quiz game 1 vs 100, which lets the Xbox Live community play host, contestant and audience together at the same time. He didn't provide any extra details nor a date for the game, which is currently scheduled for spring.

  • Incredible Hulk ('08)
  • Billy Madison
  • The Jerk
  • The Blues Brothers
  • The Mummy Returns
  • The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior
  • The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
  • The Bourne Supremacy
  • Carlito's Way
  • National Lampoon's Animal House
  • Cheech and Chong's Next Movie
  • Out of Sight ('98)
  • Child's Play 2
  • Child's Play 3
  • Red Dragon
  • Scarface ('83)
  • The Chronicles of Riddick
  • The Scorpion King
  • The Fast and the Furious
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
  • Shaun of the Dead
  • The Frighteners
  • Village of the Damned
  • The Game
  • Wanted
  • Hellboy II: The Golden Army
  • Waterworld
  • How High
  • Weird Science
Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (51) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Fixxxer #1 3 years ago

    Good pricing but I reckon I'd burn out my download limit with one HD film. The ISPs are not going to be too chuffed with developments like this.

  • dazrichards #2 3 years ago

    Haven't they upped the price recently for new films on SD to 450 points?

  • vegard #3 3 years ago

    540 MSP, as much as you pay when you rent a DVD then. i'd like to think that it's cheaper to rent out digital files than the DVD itself, therefor the price should reflect that.

  • Thalanos #4 3 years ago

    Yay for 'The Frighteners'! Not that I have ever downloaded a movie from the Marketplace.

  • Kill_Crazy #5 3 years ago

    @vegard

    "540 MSP, as much as you pay when you rent a DVD then. i'd like to think that it's cheaper to rent out digital files than the DVD itself, therefor the price should reflect that."

    Are the marketplace films rentals then or do you get to keep them?

  • CrunchinJelly #6 3 years ago

    Rentals.

    You can keep them for 14 days, but once you've started watching you have to finish it in 24 hours. Can watch it as many times as you like in those 24 hours.

    It's a bit like Sky Box Office.

  • Widge #7 3 years ago

    and Apple TV, I think you get to keep it longer with Apple

  • Rirekon #8 3 years ago

    Wait, so I can rent it through the XBL for £4.50 and have 24 hours to use it (once I start), or I can rent it from blockbuster for £3 (give or take) and have 3 days to a week to use it...

    Yeah, I know which I'll be using. These on demand services are such a rip off, though they've yet to compare to the horror that is cinema pricing.

  • Lebowski #9 3 years ago

    'Shaun of the Dead' can be seen roughly four times a week on ITV2 and ITV2+1-but-isn'tITV3.

  • michaelius #10 3 years ago

    Can you download those in Europe ?
    I though it's only for US xbox owners.

  • mcmonkeyplc #11 3 years ago

    Why would the UK chairman annouce something for the US only? Think about it.

  • Toothball #12 3 years ago

    Hmm, How High is an interesting choice. Target audience perhaps?

  • woodnotes #13 3 years ago

    "Wait, so I can rent it through the XBL for £4.50 and have 24 hours to use it (once I start), or I can rent it from blockbuster for £3 (give or take) and have 3 days to a week to use it..."

    You can rent a brand new SD film for 360 ms points, which is equivalent to £3.06 - cheaper than the £3.95 that Blockbuster charge (and your fuel to get there if it isn't walkable).

    It's the HD versions of the films that are a rip-off.

  • mazzl #14 3 years ago

    so only uk and us again. pretty pointless that is. when will the rest of the world get this stuff?

  • Kill_Crazy #15 3 years ago

    Will tell my mate to carry on using Lovefilm. Under £4 a month for two rentals, one at a time. Includes HDDVD and bluray too.

  • skillian #16 3 years ago

    Indeed, compared to a service like LoveFilm the pricing just seems to far from reality.

  • ronuds #17 3 years ago

    Your Blockbusters are cheap. The XBL service is much cheaper in my neck of the woods.

    And most of you are comparing SD to HD rentals. I'm sure blu-ray movies are more expensive to rent than DVD's.

  • brooza #18 3 years ago

    "they've yet to compare to the horror that is cinema pricing"

    £11.99 a month for unlimited cinema viewings? I think that's quite reasonable

  • Widge #19 3 years ago

    I think offering this service is obviously useful for some, as I often say I think its nice that the consoles are trying to branch out more from being 'just games machines'. HD, yeah, its not going to look so hot really, not like bluray. Sometimes you just want to hire a film rather than buy the disc.

    Lovefilms offering is hard to beat on value as mentioned, plus you get the proper shniz when it comes to HD. The caveat is that you have less control over what you are getting sent to watch.

  • angerisagift #20 3 years ago

    I'd rather buy a boxed DVD of 'Weird Science' for 4.37 delivered (from blahdvd.com if you're wondering!) and keep it on my shelf and rewatch it as many times as I want, whenever I want for as long as I want than pay just over 2 quid for a 24 hour limited download rental. Thats just my personal preference - not a huge fan of the whole digital distribution > physical thing. There are upsides to it though - I do use Steam now and again for games and also GOG.com etc

  • ronuds #21 3 years ago

    Is LoveFilms like a NetFlix type service? I suppose the only downfall there is having to wait a day or two for it to arrive in the mail.

  • Xedoss #22 3 years ago

    Most of these movies on DVD cost about 1 euro (or 1 gbp) extra at play.com or sites like that :S.
    Which means you can view it whenever you want, and play it on a device that isn't as noisy as the Xbox 360.

    Besides that, there are only a few movies on this list i'd actually want to see (again) and I already own those...so i guess this is not for me.

  • glaeken #23 3 years ago

    This is 50p more a film than Sky Box office HD which seems a mistake to me. For me to use it it would have to be cheaper as it's not as flexible as Sky given I have to download the film I want to watch in advance. I guess you weight that against possibly more choice but I still don't think I would bother with it.
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 16:00

  • zarglu #24 3 years ago

    DVD & BluRays can not only be watched multiple times without a *short* time limit, but they can also be resold.

    It's much cheaper those days to just buy & resell than rent or download, and a heck of a lot more convenient IMO.

  • Rash' #25 3 years ago

    hang on 360 is about the movies now too, i thought it was just about the games...i thought "we" don't want a media centre... especially if it's full 1080p HD from physical distribution...

    :)
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 16:20

  • Darren #26 3 years ago

    I actually forgot that you can download movies on the Xbox 360 but then I remembered that there's no subtitle options (tut tut) and the picture and audio are sub-Blu-ray quality so there really isn't anything there to tempt me.

    Great for people who only rent movies I guess - as opposed to buying them - but it's not for me. I like to buy my movies and watch them more than once.

  • ronuds #27 3 years ago

    "It's much cheaper those days to just buy & resell than rent or download, and a heck of a lot more convenient IMO."

    Where the eff do you live? Blu-ray movies in my area are about 17x the cost of these rental prices! You must live in a blu-ray factory?

    "For me to use it it would have to be cheaper as it's not as flexible as Sky given I have to download the film I want to watch in advance."

    No, sir. Movie plays as it's downloading.

  • HolyJebus #28 3 years ago

    Some people are just gonna bash this service no matter what the price. To say its more convenient to go out and buy dvds then it is to turn on your xbox and start watching pretty much proves that. Madness.

  • ronuds #29 3 years ago

    "To say its more convenient to go out and buy dvds then it is to turn on your xbox and start watching pretty much proves that. Madness."

    Maybe they live above a DVD store? That's the only way I can figure it's more convenient. Otherwise, it's just a blind bashing.

  • glaeken #30 3 years ago

    @ronuds Pah you and your facts that shoot my argument down in flames.

    It is still more expensive though so I got one thing right.
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 16:26

  • zedzee #31 3 years ago

    I love "Waterworld".

  • ronuds #32 3 years ago

    @ glaeken

    lol

    I don't know much about Sky and their pricing, so I won't argue with you on that one. ;)

    I don't think anyone believes you're going to use this service and nothing else, though. If anything, it's good for the once-in-a-while rental when you're too lazy to get a movie by any other means. In that way, it gets the job done.

  • Xerx3s #33 3 years ago

    Tbf, regularly browsing play.com is better. you can buy dvd's for dirt cheap prices and never have to leave home.

  • zarglu #34 3 years ago

    >Where the eff do you live? Blu-ray movies in my area are about 17x the cost of these rental prices! You must live in a blu-ray factory?

    Nope, but the BluRays & DVDs you don't want to keep you can resell for almost the same price you bought them, taking their price waaaay down.

    >No, sir. Movie plays as it's downloading.

    Maybe you live in a lucky place, there is no way the download is happening faster or just as fast as the playback around here. For SD shows, that's barely possible (with the occasional hiccup), but HD, you're looking at hours and hours.
    And you don't think leaving the console ON is free? It eats electricity and the console will age faster if left on more..

  • woodnotes #35 3 years ago

    To be fair, I don't think it's MS's fault. Prices are actually more expensive for SD movies on iTunes and Sky Player. In the US, the movies and TV episodes are the same price on 360 or PS3.

    It's the content providers forcing these rediculous prices upon us. They don't like us downloading films, even if we pay for them, so they charge us an arm and a leg to put us off.

  • smelly #36 3 years ago

    Bloody hell.. If this keeps up- Blockbusters (and the bluray format for that matter) are DOOMED!

  • chris_ace #37 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 11:55:13 13-12-2011

  • TRUTH #38 3 years ago

    Sometimes you just feel like watching a movie, can't be bothered to go to your local shop for what ever reason, or nothing on tv, so just watch it by download from xbox live. Watched Iron Man, 10,000 BC...simply for those lazy reasons. And had a pizza delivered to.

    Nice, lazy & stress free chillin out - rather have this option then not.

  • smelly #39 3 years ago

    >wat a rip off!

    Not rented a movie recently then?

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #40 3 years ago

    I agree with Truth.

    I remember when I was younger I used to love buying my DVD to build my collection. I recently went through them to see how many I've watched multiple times.

    Out of roughly 400 dvds there's only a bunch (Indy, BTTF, Ghostbusters etc) that I've watched so many times that I've truly got my moneys worth.

    There is well over 100 of them that I've only watched once and most I've watched 2-3 times.

    Try it with your own collection.

    Now I'm married with two kids I've realised I'd rather watch 2 NEW films every week or so than buy them and rarely watch them again. For me I could rent a film twice over the next year and it's still cheaper.

    I don't like this service though because of the 24 hour limit on them. I don't see why they don't just give it to you unlocked for a week. The 2 weeks is pointless and the 24 hours is even more pointless.

    Ho hum

  • ronuds #41 3 years ago

    "Maybe you live in a lucky place, there is no way the download is happening faster or just as fast as the playback around here."

    Well, it's designed to work as I described it. Not everyone can have a fast enough connection. But it sounds like you're on dial-up for cryin' out loud.

    "I don't like this service though because of the 24 hour limit on them. I don't see why they don't just give it to you unlocked for a week. The 2 weeks is pointless and the 24 hours is even more pointless."

    It's how most Digital Distribution works from what I've seen. I guess one could ask why you're renting a movie if you don't plan to watch it then?

  • makeamazing #42 3 years ago

    @smelly "not rented a movie recently"

    For a new film its £3.95 from Blockbuster... thats for one night, not sure how many the MS service is.. but I dont think £3.95 for good quality viewing is that bad.

    @ronuds Where the eff do you live? Blu-ray movies in my area are about 17x the cost of these rental prices! You must live in a blu-ray factory?

    Lol ... you really must get a new calculator ;) Many BR movies cost from £9 to £14... i hardly pay more than that for new movies... tis the internet you see... dont even think about buying from the highstreet (no one does these days).

  • Bealsy #43 3 years ago

    this is different to that shopping catalogue thats a bit like littlewoods then I presume

  • Linkified #44 3 years ago

    Whats the point of this I'm all for Blues Brothers on my 360 during those long weekends, but seriously they keep taking titles from the services.,

    So it goes 299 films week one, 289 to week two, etc.

    Stop doin it microsoft.

  • millerlfc #45 3 years ago

    Justice League: New Frontie, which is yet to get a region 2 release, is available for download! That's the only one I'm really interested in.

  • Omroth #46 3 years ago

    The reason it's not cheaper than a rental store is because it's a better service in a lot of ways. Assuming you're renting SD and your d/load is fast enough then you get it straight away and you don't have to worry about returning it. Whoever was saying Blockbuster is better because it gives you three days to watch the movie... well which is on demand, so the idea is you only really need it for two hours.

    On the other hand, the selection is small compared to a good video store and I like browsing in a video store.

  • EvilBob_leeds #47 3 years ago

    @SpaceMidget

    While you do make a good point, the fact is that most peoples DVD collections are made up as 10% brilliant films that they bought as soon as they came out for the full price and 90% films that were got from HMV bargain racks / Amazon / Play for a fiver.

    Scarface, Carlito's way and the Bournes are all good films, but all of them can be picked up for a fiver at the most at any high street or website. Given the time it will take to download a movie, I see little benefit in this service at the price they're offering. Now if they were to drop the price, or unrestrict the viewing time, it would seem a whole lot more attractive.

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #48 3 years ago

    "It's how most Digital Distribution works from what I've seen. I guess one could ask why you're renting a movie if you don't plan to watch it then? "

    Maybe because being a family man I might be interrupted and want to continue the film the next day or I can't start watching until late and want to continue the next day.

    I don't have a problem with time-limited distribution, it's the timings in this case. They are truly absurd.

    I think 48 hours is a more reasonable time to expect people to have finished watching a film.

    Likewise, what's the point of 14 days? Surely most people who have paid for a film will have decided to watch it within a week; 10 days tops!

    I just get the feeling that part of the expense in this pricing is that they are 'giving' it to us for 2 weeks.

    I think 48 hours to finish the film with a week to start it is much more sensible. i.e. increase the allowance they give in exchange for a reduction in the overall rental time.

  • Mnia786 #49 3 years ago

    Would rather throw in a few more quid for a dvd/br disc when I can actually keep my film.

    And the hell with universals array, we still own Columbia and Sony BGM chumps xD

    James Bond BITCHES!
    Edited by 1 at 28/02/09 @ 22:24

  • bad09 #50 3 years ago

    "And the hell with universals array, we still own Columbia and Sony BGM chumps xD

    James Bond BITCHES!"

    Get this boy some sex STAT!
    Edited by 1 at 02/03/09 @ 07:22

  • bonker #51 3 years ago

    Hold on, this is Universal - where's all the classic 1930's horrors???