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."

Re:Holy crap!

[Aladrin]

You could before, but now you'll be able to do it without a cable subscription and without getting off your ass, even just to check the mail.

If they offered an unlimited monthly service, at a very cheap rate ($15?), I'd go for it. If they also expanded to stream current TV eps, I'd drop my cable service totally and just pay them, even for as much as my cable service charges. You see, my cable provider doesn't let me pick when I want to watch it unless I remember to tell the machine to record the show (including shows I didn't know I wanted to watch) and that my power doesn't flicker in the middle of recording. Since I -never- randomly watch TV (no time), Netflix would provide all I want and more, and I'd pay them the same $60/mo instead.

What, no Wii?

[jimstapleton]

Honestly, that is probably the console that will get the greatest use out of that feature.

Re:What, no Wii?

[steveo777]

HD? Are they really steaming HD movies already? I only ask because I don't have enough bandwidth for that. Well, I might but I've never seen it actually work that well for a very long time. Gametrailser [gametrailers.com]'s HD content usually has to buffer to 90% or beyond to watch a whole preview. Could just be my crappy provider (Qwest, no fiber).

I'm sure the Wii could play MP4's in 480P pretty well if they wanted to let you. It'd be nice if I could view my photos and my videos off the digital camera. But, yeah, if they did have HD content available (and the bandwidth), no chance.

Open up what you already have

[cerelib]

They should start by making their "Watch Instantly" video-on-demand system work on other operating systems and browsers. Right now it is "Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, running Internet Explorer version 6 or higher". I am not a fan of Flash, so I hate to say it, but at least start by switching to Flash instead of ActiveX (or whatever Windows tech they are using). I don't get it really. They will send me a DVD that I can (maybe not allowed, but still can) make copies of and re-encode to whatever format I want, but they won't send me the bits to play using any software I want.