Nintendo Wii To Get Netflix Streaming 213
motang writes "Netflix and Nintendo is set to announce Netflix streaming service for the Wii soon. Subscribers who have the unlimited streaming service can watch non-HD version of the movies on their Wii with a special Netflix disc inserted." The thing I can't understand is why the PS3 and Wii have to require a disc. Both are capable of downloading applications and executing them. Why should I be required to dedicate my disc slot to stream a movie? Of course, my netflix queue is half-filled with Ken Burns documentaries, so if I lost the disc, I think that would just make the wife happier.
How to reserve your disc (Score:4, Informative)
Go go http://www.netflix.com/InstantStreamingDisc?device=Wii to reserve a disc.
As many others have already said... (Score:5, Informative)
...Microsoft has an exclusivity deal with Netflix for the time being [microsoft.com]. Either due to technical or legal reasons, requiring the disc is a way to get around this. Considering Sony has already said the required disc is temporary [destructoid.com], this implies the exclusivity deal is nearing its end. This also implies any disc required for the Wii would be temporary as well.
Calm down people. Jeebus.
Re:Unless I'm mistaken... (Score:1, Informative)
And yet it still beat the pants off the DVD-and-Netflix-ready XBox360 and the Blu-Ray-and-Netflix-capable PS3, sales-wise. Does this tell you anything about the market for game consoles?
Re:Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about the PS3, but I know technical limitations for memory on the Wii pretty much make this crap anyways.
The Wii can "download" apps, but its internal (flash) memory is incredibly small. Their "run from the SD slot" is a kludge that doesn't actually run the app from the SD slot, it copies it into part of the internal (flash) memory first.
I'm willing to bet the Netflix app is simply too big to fit inside the flash reliably.
Re:Deaf and Hard of Hearing still snubbed (Score:5, Informative)
I Googled "why no captions netflix streaming". Here is the very first entry listed in the results:
http://blog.netflix.com/2009/06/closed-captions-and-subtitles.html [netflix.com]
You're welcome :-)
Re:The disc is DRM (Score:5, Informative)
The real reason I think is that Microsoft got an "exclusive" on putting Netflix "on" a game console.
This is 100% correct.
Netflix has even stated so.
There will be a downloadable application (no disc needed) for the PS3 sometime this year.
Re:PS3 will go Disc Free in Late 2010 (Score:4, Informative)
Yup. NetFlix dances around the issue (see: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/26/netflix-ps3-disc-must-remain-in-system-until-2010-update/ ). But it's pretty obvious this is the reason why.
I don't think firmware QA is the primary reason here. It's an app. There's not much difference between QAing an app loading from local storage vs. an app loading from disc.
Actually at this point, PS3 Netflix streaming is superior to the Xbox solution... you might need to put a disc in, but you don't need to fork over $50/year for an Xbox Live Gold membership.
Seems like a decent tradeoff.
Re:The disc is DRM (Score:2, Informative)
Err OK Silverlight is on version 3 so by your arbitrary method doesn't suck.
It has a poor take up rate but does a lot more than flash can do but is generally considered harder to work with.
Windows Media Player stolen from Apple! Blimey something build for a different platform and even different processor architecture and running a different proprietary file format is quite a steal.
Re:The disc is DRM (Score:2, Informative)
It will suck on Roku, too, if you have a crappy/inconsistent connection. If it ever drops below a certain threshold, it will just degrade the quality to the next lowest stream it thinks it can support. Roku is worse than xbox/ps3 in that it seems to remember the resolution you usually stream at so even when the connection gets better (other times of the day, for example), it takes it a while to realize it and start getting the higher quality streams.
Re:As many others have already said... (Score:1, Informative)
Yes Microsoft has the exclusivity deal to have it built into the "dashboard" of a console for the time being. I read that PS3 gets around exclusivity agreement by using a Java program within the Blu-Ray disc that calls up the Netflix stream. I'm sure that Wii will do something similar, though it won't be able to use Blu-Ray Java because, clearly, it doesn't have a BR drive.
As for the size of the stream, Netflix won't fully buffer a stream if you pause it. It only goes so far out. I remember once someone said that they had isolated the temporary stream files and they're not more than 5MB or so at any given time, in addition to less than 10MB for the actual player. The Wii's memory is more than enough to make this happen via Dashboard once the MS exclusivity runs out.
Re:The disc is DRM (Score:5, Informative)
I used to have DSL through TDS until I started having problems with nexflix buffering. The movie would play fine for 1 hour and then start to have buffering issues.
I did some network speed tests using dslreports and a local speedtest server. If I was just doing normal web browsing and then did a speed test I would get a decent speed, plenty good for netflix streaming. Then I tried watching a movie, one hour into it buffering started, I shut down the movie and immediately ran a speed test and found that my bandwidth had been cut exactly in half.
I repeated this test a number of times and then switched to cable internet and told TDS to get fucked - they wanted me to switch to a more expensive plan but did not admit to throttling my connection. Now I have higher speed cable(charter) and haven't noticed any throttling or had any trouble with netflix playback(HD).
Re:The disc is DRM (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How to reserve your disc (Score:1, Informative)
That's funny, it worked for me. You could try this instead:
http://www.netflix.com/wii
that's where I started, but it redirected to the link above.
Re:The disc is DRM (Score:2, Informative)