Movie studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer has signed a deal with Google to bring the studio’s stash of movie classics to both Google Play and YouTube. The deal, which was announced yesterday, will see more than 600 titles available for rental on Google’s two media websites.
These include popular titles such as Robocop and the Terminator series of movies. Google has been angling to increase the user-appeal for its media websites, especially Google Play, which was formerly known as the Android Market, to offer an all-inclusive multimedia experience to users.
Google Play incorporates Android apps, books, movies and music via Google Music. The deal will, however, only see Google avail a small fraction of MGM’s massive movie catalog as the 600 movies is only a small portion of the movies MGM has in its archives. In addition, this list will only include old titles that have exceeded the 10 years royalty limit, something that may be great for viewers but not for those looking to rent some more-recent titles.
Google has, however, indicated that it will be adding more titles in the coming weeks. Google has to-date signed on six of the largest studios with Paramount Pictures being the last signed up only last week, prior to the MGM deal. This paints a picture where Google is building up its media offerings to entice users to its online media offerings and maybe make some more money from digital sales, something that is not doing very well with at the moment.
The MGM deal does however take the company one step closer towards becoming a media offering company to be reckoned with, although beating off the likes of Amazon and Netflix will be the real nut to crack in the battle for online entertainment media domination. Movies will rent at between $1.99 and $3.99 per movie rental.
