--- title: Xbox Turns Down Netflix $500M Offer | daily.dev description: Netflix reportedly offered Microsoft $500 million for a seven year deal to adapt shows and films based on Xbox characters. Microsoft responded with an $800... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/xbox-turns-down-netflix-500m-offer-ygficnb9y twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Xbox Turns Down Netflix $500M Offer | daily.dev og:description: Netflix reportedly offered Microsoft $500 million for a seven year deal to adapt shows and films based on Xbox characters. Microsoft responded with an $800... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/xbox-turns-down-netflix-500m-offer-ygficnb9y og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/YgfICNB9y.png og:image:alt: Xbox Turns Down Netflix $500M Offer og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Xbox Turns Down Netflix $500M Offer **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Netflix reportedly offered Microsoft $500 million for a seven year deal to adapt shows and films based on Xbox characters. Microsoft responded with an $800 million offer, and the deal has reportedly fallen through, according to Puck. Microsoft is said to be pursuing smaller, case-by-case deals with multiple partners instead of one exclusivity agreement. Microsoft's forthcoming projects include Minecraft and Diablo animated series with Netflix, a Call of Duty film in the works at Paramount, a third Fallout season at Amazon, and a Minecraft Movie sequel opening next year. Gears of War, The Elder Scrolls, and Sea of Thieves are also being pitched for adaptations. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 105 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-26). **TL;DR:** Commenters mostly see this as a symptom of Microsoft's confused Xbox strategy, debating whether chasing bigger licensing deals and squeezing margins makes sense versus gutting the brand's remaining goodwill; several also dispute the $500M framing and the quality of past game adaptations. **Sentiment:** 10% positive · 35% mixed · 55% skeptical **The case for** - Some argue holding out for bigger, piecemeal deals (like the countered $800M offer) could net Microsoft more value than one exclusivity deal. - A few point out Microsoft's publishing/licensing business (Minecraft movie, Fallout, Arcane-style adaptations) is actually doing well despite console struggles. - Some think case-by-case deals per franchise make more sense than selling exclusivity on everything at once. **The pushback** - Many feel Microsoft lacks a coherent long-term strategy for Xbox and keeps chasing short-term financial targets. - Commenters criticize internally imposed 30% margin demands as unrealistic for the games industry and symptomatic of accountant-driven management. - Several argue Xbox's remaining exclusive IP is thin after studio closures and that franchises like Halo are in decline. - Some dispute that $500M is actually a low offer, noting the article's framing (and headline) is misleading without full deal terms. - Multiple commenters criticize past Xbox game-to-show adaptations (e.g., Halo) as poor quality compared to Fallout or Arcane. **By community** - hackernews (mixed): Discussion splits between frustration at Microsoft's inconsistent Xbox strategy and more measured takes that case-by-case licensing deals and margin targets could be reasonable business moves. **Hottest debate:** Whether Microsoft's pursuit of smaller, higher-margin deals reflects smart long-term brand management or short-sighted mismanagement that's hollowing out Xbox. **Open questions** - What were the actual contract terms (ancillary rights, backend participation, sub-licensing) that would clarify whether $500M was a good or bad offer? - Can Microsoft's remaining franchises (Halo, Elder Scrolls, Gears of War) still support successful adaptations given mixed track records? - Is Microsoft seriously considering selling or spinning off the Xbox business, and how would that even work technically? **Highlights** > There are rumours that Microsoft is internally demanding 30% margin from Xbox, and the gaming industry simply doesn't operate with those types of margins long term and it's not even in a position to dictate industry pricing. It's like the entire company is only satisfied with being #1. The whole thing is very confused and lacks consistency. The latest rumours are they are going to break up its Game Pass subscription offering so there are different subscriptions for multiplayer, cloud, games, etc. Isn't that the opposite of an effective subscription strategy? > — [guidedlight on hackernews · 4 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50228223) > Based on the headline my first thought was "Dumb MSFT!" but after reading TFA, the list of major properties is long and we don't know the proposed terms or counter on critical elements like ancillary rights, cross-media, sub-licensing, theatrical, international and, most-importantly, back-end participation. Just one of these terms can double or halve a deal's value, so we have no way to tell if $500M is crazy high or crazy low. For example, the deal Sony Pictures made which gave Netflix all global film and sequel rights to KPop Demon Hunters with zero back-end participation on the billions of dollars Netflix is now certain to earn from KPop is widely considered by experts the single worst streaming deal ever made. And that was just one unproven animated kids musical. XBox has proven mega-IP like Minecraft, Call of Duty, Warcraft, Halo, Diablo and Elder Scrolls as well as lots of unproven properties - any one of which might become the next KPop Demon Hunters. > — [mrandish on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50228611) > Title is kind of incomplete. "[Netflix] recently made an offer to exclusively license Xbox titles from Microsoft for film and TV adaptations: $500 million for seven years." Source: https://puck.news/newsletter_content/what-im-hearing-the-pet... (full text shows in reading mode) > — [xnx on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50228359) > Based on the headline my first thought was "Dumb MSFT!" but after reading TFA, the list of major properties is long and we don't know the proposed terms or counter on critical elements like ancillary rights, cross-media, sub-licensing, theatrical, international and, most-importantly, back-end participation. Just one of these terms can double or halve a deal's value, so we have no way to tell if $500M is crazy high or crazy low. For example, the deal Sony Pictures made which gave Netflix all global film and sequel rights to KPop Demon Hunters with zero back-end participation on the billions of dollars Netflix is now certain to earn from KPop is widely considered by experts the single worst streaming deal ever made. And that was just one unproven animated kids musical. XBox has proven mega-IP like Minecraft, Call of Duty, Warcraft, Halo, Diablo and Elder Scrolls as well as lots of unproven properties - any one of which might become the next KPop Demon Hunters. > — [mrandish on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50228611) > > so we have no way to tell if $500M is crazy high or crazy low. Well, lets take just one of those examples, Minecraft. Cost apparently $150mil to make, and so far, has earned around $960mil. So if we use the usual doubling of the cost to get to the real cost with marketing and everything, it cost ~$300mil, so that is about $660mil profit. Now of course that gets split, Xbox wouldn't get 100% of that, but still, even if it got 50%, thats still most of the way to the $500mil they turned down, on just ONE film, and only factoring in the theatrical release profit, not including any money it would have made on merch, or streaming, or anything else. > — [intothemild on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50228810) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50227892) · 73 points · 105 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [It looks like Netflix won't be acquiring WB Games after all](https://daily.dev/posts/it-looks-like-netflix-won-t-be-acquiring-wb-games-after-all-bzongvwhu) · Game Developer · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Microsoft is considering spinning off Xbox entirely as the division’s margins hit 3%](https://daily.dev/posts/microsoft-is-considering-spinning-off-xbox-entirely-as-the-division-s-margins-hit-3--b8hegika7) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Xbox is \(probably\) not for sale \| Opinion](https://daily.dev/posts/xbox-is-probably-not-for-sale-opinion-f8cmlbs4k) · GamesIndustry.biz · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Trouble at Xbox](https://daily.dev/posts/trouble-at-xbox-cfkgerom3) · TechCentral · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#microsoft](https://daily.dev/tags/microsoft), [#netflix](https://daily.dev/tags/netflix), [#xbox](https://daily.dev/tags/xbox) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/xbox-turns-down-netflix-500m-offer-ygficnb9y) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Xbox Turns Down Netflix $500M Offer","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/xbox-turns-down-netflix-500m-offer-ygficnb9y","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/xbox-turns-down-netflix-500m-offer-ygficnb9y"},"datePublished":"2026-10-25T04:17:41.316Z","dateModified":"2026-10-26T19:13:23.999Z","description":"Netflix reportedly offered Microsoft $500 million for a seven year deal to adapt shows and films based on Xbox characters. 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