Netflix finally ships out Watch Instantly discs for Nintendo's Wii

Wii owners have been waiting for this day to come since early January (or before, arguably), and at long last it looks as if the rental superstar has come through. Customers around the US are receiving email notifications today stating that their Watch Instantly disc (required for Netflix playback on the Wii) has shipped, and it should be waiting in their mailbox before this weekend begins. We'll be interested to see how the streaming service performs on the weakest of the three major consoles, but given that no 1080p content is available, we doubt they'll be any major snags. Let us know when your disc arrives and how the experience is down in comments, won'tcha?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Inspector Gadget80 Posted Mar 25th 2010 6:49PM]

SWEET. Getting it now for my Wii system. Have it on the PS3 in my room. Now I can have one for my Wii in the living room!! Thanks Nintendo and Netflix!!

[jondastunna84 Posted Mar 26th 2010 5:30AM]

Already got it for my other consoles didn't want to Leave out the wii lol

[lyian Posted Mar 26th 2010 10:08AM]

nice, but why isnt this something that can be downloaded to the wii via the wii browser? Also do you need the disk Each time you want to stream? or just for an install onto the wii?

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2010 10:12AM]

Who cares? Computers can do 480p, and Blu-ray players can do 720p. Having a game console on just for a movie seems really dumb.

[Roy Emblem Posted Mar 26th 2010 12:08PM]

@(Unverified) Computers can do 1080p. But not everyone's computers are hooked up to their family room big-screen. Wii steps in there.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 26th 2010 1:19PM]

@Roy Emblem I'm pretty sure Netflix can only do 480p on a computer. A super high-quality VGA cable from Monoprice costs $5.34 plus shipping. Almost all TVs now have VGA, even if it didn't, the worst case scenario would be to use DVI/HDMI, and that's at most $6.89 for a 15 footer.

[phlydude Posted Mar 26th 2010 2:21PM]

Been watching Netflix through PlayOn on the Wii for months now - nice to have but when you get spoiled with PS3 and the quality of the videos coming from that streaming, the Wii is best left for the use on the kids or the wife that doesn't realize that there is a difference in the quality

[izzi Posted Mar 29th 2010 8:23PM]

We've been using the disk a few days now and it's pretty nice - except that the disc has to be in to play the movies. Also i've never been impressed w/ the watch instantly selection, but as far as what's there it's nice to have. We don't have cable, so it does add a lot to our 1 disc at a time subscription. I hope they add in a few new releases (even 2 a week or something, rotated) because a lot of the selection is really crappy.
We don't have an HD tv so it honestly looks great on our regular TV.