The short version
- Netflix reportedly offered $500 million (about ₹4,750 crore) for a seven-year, exclusive deal to make shows and films from Xbox's games.
- Xbox reportedly countered at $800 million (about ₹7,600 crore). The talks fell apart.
- The claim comes from Matthew Belloni at Puck, citing three unnamed sources. Netflix declined to comment.
- Xbox didn't deny it. It now reportedly plans smaller deals with more partners instead of one big exclusive.
What was reported
Belloni broke the story in Puck's "What I'm Hearing" newsletter on October 23. According to the report, Netflix's then content chief Bela Bajaria made the $500 million offer. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Xbox's business affairs team came back at $800 million. Netflix's chief financial officer Spence Neumann reportedly thought that was too rich, and the deal died.
There's a twist. Bajaria left Netflix earlier in October and was replaced by Peter Rice, a Disney and Fox veteran who is expected to chase more big IP deals. So the door may not be fully shut.
Image: Zerocade
What was on the table
The report doesn't name the franchises, only "shows and films about Xbox characters". Still, Microsoft's catalogue is huge: Halo, Gears of War, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Forza and Minecraft, and since the Activision Blizzard deal, Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch and StarCraft. A seven-year exclusive would have handed one streamer first claim on a big share of gaming's best-known names.
The deal was about film and TV only. Nothing in the report suggests games were part of it.
Image: Xbox Game Studios / 343 Industries
Xbox's side
Xbox's statement to Puck didn't argue with the numbers. It said Xbox has had "record-breaking interest" in its IP, called Netflix "a valued partner", and pointed to its upcoming Minecraft and Diablo animated series with Netflix, "among other adaptations". Those two shows were signed as separate projects and are still coming.
Why the price makes sense on paper
Image: Zerocade
Game adaptations stopped being a gamble a while ago. Fallout on Prime Video and The Last of Us on HBO both became hits, and A Minecraft Movie earned close to $1 billion at the box office in 2025. That's leverage Xbox didn't have a few years ago.
Xbox's own TV record is mixed, though. The live-action Halo series with Paramount debuted in 2022, got a second season in February 2024 and was cancelled in July 2024. Fallout, which did work, went to Amazon, not Netflix. Spreading projects across studios lets Xbox pick the right home for each franchise, and on paper it could earn more in total than one exclusive cheque.
For context, $800 million over seven years is about $114 million a year (roughly ₹1,080 crore). That's a lot for a licence, but small next to what one hit can return.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
What it means for players
Very little changes right away. Your games aren't going anywhere, and the Minecraft and Diablo shows are still coming to Netflix. The bigger picture is the same one behind the Arkane Lyon closure report and the reported Helix price projections: Microsoft is squeezing more money out of everything Xbox owns, and that now includes Hollywood.
What to watch: the next adaptation announcement. If the "more partners" plan is real, some of Xbox's biggest names could land at Amazon, HBO or Apple instead.
