Netflix streaming coming to Xbox 360

For no additional cost. Good deal for all parties, including we customers. [Kotaku]

[#1 posted by musicalwoods , July 14, 2008 1:39 PM]

Well, you have to be a Gold member, so Microsoft is not entirely honest with "No additional cost."

My brother is going to love this feature.

[#2 posted by Anonymous , July 14, 2008 2:18 PM]

but not Wii customers....

[#3 posted by Thaddeus Smith , July 14, 2008 2:51 PM]

according to Gizmodo the gold requirement is for sharing movies with your friends via xbox live party.

[#4 posted by Zachariah , July 14, 2008 3:33 PM]

I'm loving my Roku ... but, oops, maybe I should have just gotten a 360 instead. (except maybe for the fact that the Roku is isn't loud or hot)

[#5 posted by RedShirt77 , July 14, 2008 4:40 PM]

When does PS3 get one? I like my movies HD.

[#6 posted by SeppTB , July 14, 2008 4:51 PM]

#4 - Not sure what you're asking? The 360 is just as capable of displaying HD as a PS3. I guess it'd be nice to be able to rent BluRay from netflix and also stream to the PS3, but, Microsoft has the partnership so you won't be seeing that unless Sony partners up with some other streaming service. Hopefully NetFlix will stream HD eventually, some of us do have connections to support that.

[#7 posted by RedShirt77 , July 14, 2008 6:21 PM]

>>Not sure what you're asking?

You answered it. Thanks #5

I guess I am still a little curious how this will work.

Xbox already has movies for sale. And, if the number of times I have seen an xbox GTA4 party crash because of a busy server is any hint to how well this will work, I am not sure I want charges to my credit card for a movie I can't download.

So would this download a file that would expire a few days later?
Would it just sell me a membership and then restrict how many files I can have on my unit at one time?
What happens to my movies when the red ring of death appears?

questions to ponder...

[#8 posted by SeppTB , July 14, 2008 6:38 PM]

Its streaming. There's no download and no storage (beyond the buffer that holds the next few seconds). So if your 360 RROD's, nothing happens to 'your movies' because you never owned them, you were merely allowed to access NetFlix's movies. For an example of streaming, check out hulu.com

These movies won't be for sale (and Xbox doesn't have movies for sale, they have them for rent, they expire and self-delete). They're part of a NetFlix subscription, and the service is already offered to anyone with a PC. They have a library of about 10,000 titles, and you just pick one and it starts playing. The only new thing is it'll go to your Xbox & television now, rather than your PC and Monitor. Also, likely the backend will be NetFlix, just delivered to Microsoft, so the comparison to Live service isn't apt (and personally, I don't have those sort of problems with Live - you might want to check yours and your friends NAT settings).

I can't say for sure how it'll work, but I assume it'll work much like the Roku Netflix Streaming box. You pick what you want to watch, and it starts. Like television, but over teh internets. You'd need a decent connection, but the streaming protocols have gotten pretty good at delivering a quality (far better than youtube) picture over modest sized connections.

[#9 posted by RedShirt77 , July 14, 2008 8:34 PM]

>>and Xbox doesn't have movies for sale

Glad I didn't buy cloverfield last weekend.
The Movies currently on Xbox live didn't mention Netflix. Which makes sense since they only announced the partnership today.

[#10 posted by Marshall , July 15, 2008 1:35 AM]

We watch a fair amount of streaming content from Netflix in my household, and this is just totally awesome. We almost bought a Roku, and now I'm glad we held off.

[#11 posted by MrScience , July 15, 2008 8:28 AM]

Well posted, SepptB. I popped in to see if I could help clarify questions, but you nailed it. I looked through your history, and you have lots of well thought out, verbose posts. Nice!