In further efforts to keep shut-ins completely mired and satiated, Xbox has announced a partnership with Netflix to stream movies right into your television. Now you won’t even have to go to you mailbox. Hell, stay in your room FOREVER.

As soon as Xbox starts shipping feeding tubes, MREs and catheters, the world’s biggest winners will never have to get out of bed.

Associated Press Reports:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game console will be able to stream thousands of movies over the Internet, thanks to a deal with Netflix.

The arrangement Microsoft Corp. announced Monday at the E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles will give Netflix’s 8 million subscribers another way to stream movies on a TV instead of a computer. A Netflix-backed startup called Roku already sells a small streaming device that connects to TVs.

The Netflix streaming service — which operates in addition to its DVD-by-mail program — offers 10,000 movies and TV shows. Microsoft’s Xbox had movies available before, but not nearly as many. This expansion is key in helping Microsoft compete with Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3, because gaming consoles are becoming entertainment hubs with movies, videos and music.

In a move Blockbuster chief executive James Keyes called a “game-changing retail concept” that would “dramatically accelerate” the ailing movie rental chain’s morphing into a 21st Century multi-platform media dispensary, Blockbuster Inc. made a $1.35 billion cash offer in a hostile takeover bid for electonics retailer Circuit City yesterday, a move that was panned by both analysts and Circuit City:

Wall Street analysts puzzled over the rationale of combining two troubled companies with little in common. Circuit City, meanwhile, put out a press release questioning whether Blockbuster could obtain sufficient financing for the deal. The offer, at between US$6 and US$8 a share, is bigger than Blockbuster’s entire stock-market value, which totalled about US$630-million based on Friday’s closing price.

“It makes zero sense,” said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz &Associates Inc., a retail consulting and investment-banking firm in New York. “Circuit City is completely underwater and I don’t see any major synergies from the deal … A deal has to be ‘one-plus-one equals three.’ This is ‘one-plus-one equals one-and-a-half.’ “

It seems the only real winner in this deal might be Blockbuster’s chief antagonist, Netflix:

Blockbuster Inc. succeeds with its hostile takeover bid for Circuit City Stores Inc., it could potentially result in the movie rental company selling its DVD-by-mail business to its online rival, Netflix Inc., an analyst said Tuesday. Jefferies & Co. Inc. analyst Youssef Squali said in a Tuesday client note that the success of Blockbuster’s bid of just over $1 billion for the struggling electronics retailer is “far from certain” but could benefit Netflix in a variety of ways. These include “making Blockbuster less competitive online, and potentially ‘forcing’ Blockbuster to sell its DVD-by-mail business to … Netflix, in an effort to monetize this under-appreciated asset,” he said.

At 7 AM PDT today, Netflix’s Web site went down. As of this writing, it’s still offline. The company is unsure of when they’ll have the problem fixed. According to the company’s director of corporate communications Steve Swasey, technicians are “feverishly working” to get Netflix back up and running again.

“It was an unanticipated, unplanned outage and we apologize to our customers.”

Netflix went right on shipping after the outage, but it’s unclear as to how the Web site’s database will be affected. This may lead to shipping delays in the future.

In what will probably the beginning of the end of the HD DVD format, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and architects of the Deathstar, has joined Netflix and Best Buy in backing the Blu-ray high-definition DVD format. To be fair, poor HD DVD really never stood a chance. The format was backed by Toshiba, while Blu-ray has Sony — and it’s library of 4,000,000,000 films (estimated figure) — in its corner.

According to Wal-Mart’s resident blogger (I wonder what that pays) Susan Chronister:

“So … if you bought the HD player like me, I’d retire it to the bedroom, kid’s playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard def movies, and make space for a BD (Blu-ray disc) player for your awesome Hi Def experience.”

Ouch. Look at this way, if you always wanted an Xbox 360, which currently only supports HD DVD, now might be the time to get one cheap.