Xbox 360 officially the only console to stream Netflix -- sorry, PS3 and Wii
By Darren Murph 
posted Aug 11th 2009 7:27AM
posted Aug 11th 2009 7:27AM
[Thanks, David]
Netflix Partnership
This exclusive partnership offers you the ability to instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the television via Xbox 360. Xbox 360 will be the only game console to offer this movie-watching experience, available to Xbox LIVE Gold members who are also Netflix unlimited plan subscribers**, at no additional cost.
From the Netflix Web site, simply add movies and TV episodes to your instant Queue, which will appear automatically on the TV screen via Xbox 360. Once selected, movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds. In addition to instantly streaming Netflix movies to the TV, Xbox LIVE Gold members can browse and rate movies, fast-forward, pause and rewind, all using either their Xbox 360 Controller or Universal remote.
Damn.
Ipoop .. You sure love poop .. Poop in their granola ? That's just odd : )
Nintendo don't care and Sony have their own plans which they will take an age to deliver. Announcing exclusivity for something only you want is lame.
...Carrier exclusivity annoys me...
This just sucks. I have a PS3 and like it much better than the XBox 360. I guess I'll have to find alternative ways to stream the movies to my PS3.
@iPoop
The PS3 is far superior than the 360? Regardless of how vastly superior Sony and it's fanboi's think the CPU is, it's still rocking a 7 series Nvidia GPU. I wish you PS3 lovers would get off your high horse and realize this. The Cell could be 100x more powerful than it currently is, and it would still be bottle necked by the GPU. The PS3 and 360 are damn near equal in terms of what they can do
So Sony spends all of their money on the hardware like Blueray and Microsoft strategically circumvents them and goes for streaming, which is the future. PWND...
PS3 is superior. lol Guys gets a clue. Have you ever heard a gamer post 1998 talk about CPU in terms of gaming? It's all about GPU, which in fact, the 360 is better. Screen shoot after screen shot of the same games on both consoles proves this.
@ipoop
MS didn't have to throw money at netflix. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings joined the Microsoft board of directors in 2007. So MS can just hand him a check. lol.
Damn what? F nexflix, nothing major, move along.
@iPoop
Ghostbusters is already out here in the USA, and the game is identical on both the 360 and PS3.
What is interesting is that you FAVOR when Sony pays to make Ghostbusters a timed exclusive in Europe, but DISFAVOR when Microsoft and NetFlix make their service exclusive to the 360.
Fanboy much?
@JKL
Streaming may be the future, but when I have bandwidth caps at 80GB, it won't take long for me to use that all up in short order. Especially when it's full length HD content. And I hate it. I can watch on demand movies on TV all day, every day, and I'm not using "excessive" bandwidth? Drop a few torrents down the pipe and now I'm a heavy user? BS.
And I still don't care because I don't live in America.
Come on MS, it isn't the ONLY market in the world.
JKL: MS circumvents Sony? By replacing true HD content and highest quality sound with lower res content and worse audio? Are you serious?
Actually it's not lame to announce exclusivity for only something you want. It's yet another reason to buy a 360. One of my friends just bought a 360 over a PS3 solely for the reason of being able to stream Netflix. He didn't care which system he played games on, he only wanted Madden and NCAA, but the Netflix is what sold him on 360. I would definitely announce this.
How's about I just install Linux to my PS3 and stream some Netflix to make this unofficial.
God, this sucks. It would serve Netflix best to make sure their streaming service was available to as many potential customers as possible; It should be on every damn device that can support it, period.
You know what would be cool?? If Sony worked Silverlight into their browser...then we could all be happy and watch our Netflix, as well as continue to watch our Hulu, YouTube, and whatever other video streaming site we wanted :D
Ugh, but that means agreements with Microsoft...hmmm a man can dream can't he?
I'm going to cancel my Netflix account now. I've been using Netflix and just popping the DVD's into my PS3, waiting for the day that streaming comes to the PS3. Now that it's not, I don't see a use for keeping my Netflix account.
Such a shame. It's a stupid move for Netflix, but a smart move for M$.
"Damn" is a good word for this. Mine is: ANTITRUST!
Whoa .. I love it ! .. I own all 3 but my 360 is my baby .. glad i bought another one last week .. to watch Netflix in bed .. Media Center etc....
Netflix carries midget porn now?
Oh how i wish
Hmm....sounds like Microsoft payed some big money to lock that one up. Reminds me of the days of the blu/hd dvd fight with the studio buyouts by Sony that won it for their format. MS using Sony tricks against them?
So Netflix is tops over Blockbuster for now, but can they stay ahead or continue to compete with RedBox? I guess it depends on the direction of digital downloads....
At least Microsoft is knows they can loose whatever edge they have if they don't start spending their cash.
A Netflix service for the Wii would have been a tremendous success probably. Hopefully Microsoft didn't just this to buy themselves more time and will continue to make the service better...
win
Agree, just when Sony begins to gain some momentum again, MS throws it's money around :)
And this changes anything? I mean come on, Xbox fans bragging about Netflix now? Netflix?!
Tony,
The Xboy fans can brag about more than just Netflix, they have a better online experience, better game selection, Xbox Live Arcade games which are brilliant and lots of fun, a lower costing system, better controllers etc...
So with that said yeah Netflix is just another reason why the system is better.
@lothar
"they have a better online experience" - I'll give you that one, but when Sony finally add cross-game voice chat the PSN will pretty much be on par, and pretty much is already if you want to play with randoms.
"better game selection" - that is a matter of opinion. Please don't state it as fact. I personally prefer the PS3s exclusives to the 360s. Not a huge fan of Gears or Halo, or even Resistance (Killzone 2 is pretty good but still not great - I'm not much of a fan of console shooters - I just can't play them on a controller, and they all seem to be dumbed down for the restrictive number of controller buttons and accuracy). It is more the likes of Uncharted, LBP etc I like.
"Xbox Live Arcade games which are brilliant and lots of fun" - True, but are you suggesting that the PS3 doesn't have good PSN titles?
"a lower costing system" - unless you want a blu-ray player as well (basically I think the cost of the PS3 is worth it to get both. And don't go saying that Netflix is a viable alternative, because it lower quality, and only available in the USA), or want Wi-fi, rechargable controllers, online gaming, wireless headset etc. Everything on the 360 is propriatary so have a significant markup (especially the HDDs)
"better controllers" - Again, that is an opinion. I prefer the PS3 conrollers, although for shooters the 360s triggers are better (I still prefer the layout, shape of the controller, and configuration of analog sticks) but again that is just my opinion.
Please stop being a fanboy. You really don't need to and probably shouldn't defend a system or big it up. Sure, prefer one system to another, but fanboyism is stupid. I own both systems and both are great. I prefer the PS3 to the 360 but am predominantly a PC gamer (not nearly as rare over here in the UK, and Europe in general) and that is my system of choice unless a game is predominantly multiplayer (most of my friends don't have up-to-date PCs, but most will have soon-ish when Starcraft 2 hits...then everything will change). It's all about what you want out of a system. NEVER say one is better. (It can be better at something specific, but overall is opinion).
/rant
Well, I had already made the decision to go with a 360... this just locked it down.
So after four years they finally sold it to you? :s What were you waiting for?
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
this didnt do it for me....I was waiting on a good enough reason....lol..should have waited another year tho because all I play on my Elite is Fable 2, and Gears 2
htpc ftw
Requiring the gold membership & a Netflix membership sucks. Can't they just agree on a 'package price'?
Hey Microsoft, it would be nice if all the tv/movie content on the xbox could be had for a monthly fee sans paying credits for each episode.
Xbox Live membership for a year is $50. I pay $9 a month for my Netflix account. That is less than cable and satelite. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Xbox Live Gold membership can be found even cheaper when bought online, just Bing it....
Bing, when used as a verb, sounds horrible.
you forgot paying for internet there little buddy. that's another 50 bucks a month at least (that is if you want quality)
And you know what else you'll need to pay for? Power to run all those devices. And food so you don't starve to death. And most likely rent or mortgage. Man, they really know how to gouge the average consumer.
But paying $50 a year (microsoft's price), for a console you might not even play online with, hardly seems worth the price. We pay for our internet bill already, why pay microsoft's additional cost on top of the netflix account. Instead of using netflix exclusivity as an additional reason to get people to purchase a 360 over a PS3, they decide to ram another useless fee up your stinkhole :/ It reeks of greed.
This is great for gamers that play extensively online, or people willing to shell out for gold, but for the casual online player (like myself), or the person seeking a "media center", this is a stupid idea.
Well you can always purchase PlayOn for ~$40 if the XBoxLive annual subscription isn't to your liking. Of course you'll still have to pay for your Netflix subscription. Or you could just get a ROKU for $99 and your Netflix subscription. There are other options.
Time for MS to finaly acquire NetFlix be done with it. NetFlix is already MS's board, it's next logical step.
who's to say that it's not already in the plans...
Exclusive wins. At least that is Microsoft way to battle
Actually, Sony threw a LOT of money at movie studios in order to switch them over to supporting Bluray exclusively instead of HD-DVD. These same tactics are exactly what Microsoft is doing, but for a LOT less money I'd wager.
Your avatar is creepy as hell.
And Toshiba did the same thing with HDDVD, quit talking like Sony is evil here
Still thoroughly enjoying the roku despite the horrible UI. Stupid little box gets better over time like a fine wine, I swear. Apparently baseball fans are happier with it now? I dunno, I think baseball is the most boring thing anyone's ever paid to watch, so don't ask me. But netflix, and amazon for rentals, kinda makes the $99 toy a happy impulse buy.
Noooo! Only 360 has Netflix how will i ever watch movies on my TV!
But wait, i can just download the movie for free and stream the file to my TV via my PS3.
and you think only the ps3 can do that...... the 360 can NATIVELY stream full mkv files now thanks to media center 7 (no transcoding mess like is required for the ps3 currently).