Nintendo Wii Picks Up Netflix Streaming: Coming In Spring 2010

I felt a great disturbance in the Force... as if dozens of ISPs suddenly cried out in terror and then suddenly ran to upgrade their networks. Oh wait... no... they just went to add throttling caps and hire lobbyists to fight net neutrality.

I wish they didn't have the stupid agreement with MS and could have therefore just made a "Netflix Channel" instead of requiring the disc. :(

Are you sure its a Microsoft exclusive feature?  I've read around the net and I couldn't get a place that said it is.  Netflix claims they use the disc method because it's quicker to get to the public than to have a software update.  This could be their way of saying that it is Microsoft exclusive, but I don't think that is true.

No it's definitely a licensing thing. It was supposed to be exclusive to Microsoft. But Netflix found a loophole. It is only exclusive to MS as being a built in feature. Requiring an add-on disc makes it  legally available to Nintendo and Sony, as long as it's not installing anything

Joystiq: "Is releasing the PS3 application on a disc required by an exclusivity agreement with Microsoft?"

Netflix: "The Netflix agreement with Sony for PS3 is consistent with the terms of our partnership with Microsoft for Xbox 360."

That's lawyer-speak for "Yes, but MS will sue us for subverting the spirit of the agreement if we say so."

There's absolutely no reason they couldn't have had it available has a PS Store download by now. The Netflix/MS agreement doesn't expire until "late 2010", so by next X-Mas it should be built into all consoles.

nice, something to look forward to :-P Now i just need to get a netflix account lol

Wow the Television business just has to be waiting for the bomb to drop. I mean I still watch a couple of network shows. The market is becoming thinner and thinner. I mean I can watch most sports on the internet if I want many of it realtime or very close. I can also watch almost any movie through netflix and or comcast on demand I think the dish subscribers have this option to. Then I can record amything on TV to a TIVO a media PC or to my equipped cable or dish box and autoremove commercials. Where are they gonna get payed in a year or two when the commercials start to dissapear?

I can see this helping existing Wii owners, but I doubt this feature will do much to attract new Wii customers.

BTW, Xbox 360 can also stream Netflix, but the service is only available to Xbox Live Gold members ($50/yr fee).

uhhh I think you made a typo lol $50 a month for a live membership would be ridiculous lol

I can't imagine ANYONE would pay that lol

Ooops, sorry, I meant a year!

Thanks for the catch!

The media market now is interesting to watch the impacts for many areas of it are going to be huge I think. Much like the music business was affected the visual side is going to change massively from the way it looks.