One of the best features of Microsoft's New Xbox Experience would be the Megazord-like ability to join your Xbox 360 with your Netflix account in order to form one bad ass movie streaming juggernaut. We've been enjoying the feature for the last several weeks but with the official launch of the NXE tomorrow, mysteriously the selection of available movies has gotten substantially smaller.

This afternoon Joystiq got word that titles that were available earlier on the service had been removed and stamped with a "Not Available on Xbox" disclaimer. Being the Internet detectives that they are, they used the information super highway and unveiled that all of the current missing movies are from the Columbia Pictures catalogue. If you don't know what this means, it means this – Vin Diesel's XXX will not be available for viewing on my Xbox 360. No one and I mean no one, takes the classics away from me!

Our Netflix streaming queues just got considerably shorter on the eve of the NXE launch. Acting on a tip, we popped into our Netflix account and sure enough, our "Instant Queue" had a new "Notes" column with an oft-repeated, red (nobody likes red!) notice: "Not available on Xbox." Logging onto Xbox Live (with an NXE account) confirmed that these titles were no longer available for streaming on Xbox 360.

Update: We've found a common thread! All of the affected titles from our Queue are distributed by Columbia Pictures. Columbia Pictures, of course, is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Microsoft rival Sony. Case closed? -- Joystiq

Netflix streaming is one of the best things about the NXE and if they start losing movies due to rights then it could get pretty horrible, really fast. Imagine having nothing to watch on there but crap made before the 1980s. Gross. If it was made before Caddyshack, I don't consider it a real movie.