This weekend, I finally dumped Blockbuster Total Access in favor of Netflix.
A few months ago, Blockbuster shut down the local Blockbuster. The nearest one is now 3 miles away. OK, that’s not that far, but it’s further than I’ve ever had to go to a Blockbuster, and it’s in an area we almost never frequent, so it’s never “on the way.”
Worse, right as they closed that store, they changed their game rental policies. I’ve been on an older, grandfathered Total Access plan that includes 2 coupons each month for a free movie or game rental. The game rentals used to not have due dates, like the movies. But they changed that so that now the movies had a 1-week rental period, then it cost $1/night overdue. Then just this weekend, as I rented 2 more games, they informed me that the game rentals are now 5-day rentals. So if I rent on Saturday, they’re due Thursday.
On the way home from Blockbuster, I went by Game Stop, bought the hard drive I needed for the XBOX 360 and when I got home, I put the Blockbuster account on hold and opened up a Netflix account. Better yet, Netflix finally changed their trial period from 2 weeks to 1 month. We installed the 360 hard drive, renewed the XBOX Gold, and now we’re streaming Netflix movies and TV to the 360. They also stream to the computer, but only on Windows and Mac, so I have to launch the Windows virtual machine for that. That’s silly, and I hope they figure that out soon. They’re using MS Silverlight as the technology base for the streaming. Microsoft and Novell have collaborated on Novell Moonlight, which is simply Silverlight on linux. Netflix should be supporting that platform.
Anyway, we still don’t have a solution for game rentals, but I’m content to be rid of Blockbuster now. Both Gamefly and Blockbuster have game rental plans at $15/month, which is just too much, I think. I’ll just have to see how badly the boys pester me for it, eh. 
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