Netflix Hopes to Offer Services Via 360, PS3

Gamasutra is reporting on comments made by Netflix in a recent financials conference call. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings stated that the company is looking to offer movie service via next gen consoles at some point. "[Said Hastings,] 'In terms of enabling the viewing of online content on the television screen, we are exploring a variety of options, including Internet connected, high definition DVD players, internet connected game consoles, and dedicated internet set tops, with a variety of partners, trying to understand the best ways to provide inexpensive viewing of online content on the television.' .. It is unclear, however, whether either Sony or Microsoft would allow such a service to become available on their consoles, as both Sony prepares and Microsoft already offers their own internet-connected video-on-demand services over their respective networks."

It is better than competing services

[zpapasmurf]

Having used the netflix "watch it now" service as well as iTunes I can say that of the two, Netflix is superior. Having not used Amazon's service or movielink or anything like that I can't comment on them except to say that I would never use them.

With netflix, I pay 16.99 a month for 3 movies out at a time. On top of that I get 17 hours of online watching for free (As in, when I signed up I paid that amount for the DVDs and no instant viewing). What I like about the Netflix service is that A) It's fast... movies start within 15 seconds B) It scales well depending on your connection speed (up to DVD resolution video) and C) I "rent" the material, I do not pay to own it.

Recently, Netflix has also partnered with NBC and I know that for some shows (Heroes specifically) they will put the most recent episode on line 2 days after it airs without commercial in widescreen 720x480 resolution.

I have also heard that netflix are testing out plans for unlimited online viewing along with DVD rentals at their current prices for new customers. It seems like a win win to me.

TFA is misleading.

[WoTG]

This confused me also, I figured Wii is a no-brainer, even if it's not at the maximum resolution that Netflix is willing to stream. So, since I've been considering buying shares in Netflix, I decided to actually RTFA.

The author of the article on Gamasutra.com used PS3 and XBox as examples. The actual transcript of the conference call does not mention PS3 or Xbox, just this:

"In terms of enabling the viewing of online content on the television screen, we are exploring a variety of options, including Internet connected, high definition DVD players, Internet connected game consoles, and dedicated Internet set tops, with a variety of partners, trying to understand the best ways to provide inexpensive viewing of online content on the television."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/50856-netflix-q3-2007-earnings-call-transcript?source=yahoo [seekingalpha.com]

So... the millions of Wii's out there will probably have their chance at this too, IMHO.