Pretty much everyone agrees that DVDs and optical media in general are technologies with a finite window of usefulness, at least with respect to retail media delivery. We’ll eventually get to the point where we have the infrastructure and technology in place to stream media, on demand, with little to no concessions over having physical media in hand.
Looks like Netflix just upped the ante and is on the fast track to make that come true. Netflix Inc. announced yesterday that they’ve introduced a small $99 box that will directly stream more than 10,000 movies and TV shows from their library to the TVs of subscribers. Why am I reporting on this on the front page of SarcasticGamer.com? I’ll tell you why… the wording of the article. This device is set to be the “first of several devices that will pipe Netflix’s streaming services to TV sets.” I have a hunch what some of the other devices will be. I’ll bet you do too.
Hope aboard the speculation train, after the jump.
Rumors have been floating around for quite some time about Netflix approaching Microsoft and Sony for built-in Netflix support on their respective consoles. I’ve read the rumors that deals are, or already have been struck and actually waist deep in the implementation stages. To this point though, they’re all still just that… rumors.
Sony has been working with DivX to get the Playstation 3 approved as a DivX Certified device, which means theoretically, if Netflix opts to use DivX with the appropriate DRM, then the Playstation 3 could be nearer than we think to supporting Netflix’s streaming service. I should point out though, if watching DRM trends over the years has taught me anything, it’s that every company thinks they can do DRM right. I don’t expect Netflix to opt for DivX DRM for their streaming service.
When I think about Netflix on the 360 or PS3, one thing keeps coming to mind. Both Microsoft and Sony will likely want exclusivity with such a prominent name-brand service. It would be in Netflix’s best interest to have both platforms open to them. Given the possibilities, I think it’s quite possible that one of the two companies will attempt dig deep into their pockets to try to secure the functionality exclusively for themselves, while keeping their competition out of the loop. If the 360, or PS3, could put the Netflix logo on the outside of their retail boxes, that’s instant additional brand recognition right there. People know and understand Netflix. The thought of a completely electronic version, without the (relatively painless) hassles of mailing discs, could be a a very big bullet point on someone’s feature list.
Possible technicalities that might keep this Netflix deal from being the multimedia utopia we’ve been waiting for are numerous. Pricing is clearly one of the biggest concerns. With the traditional Netflix model, US Mail was Netflix’s blessing and curse. You couldn’t exchange movies faster than US Mail worked, but if you suddenly substitute the speed of US Mail with the bandwidth of various consumers, you’re going to have some folks with the potential to download orders of magnitude faster than other folks. Is a flat monthly fee really the best way to handle that? Probably not. I bet we’ll see a bandwidth (ie. filesize) or per-title fee or limit. This isn’t the end of the world, but the allure of the traditional Netflix “all you can eat” subscription plan was a nice selling point that I’m sure drew more than me into their fold.
Another possible issue is simply hard drive space. On the PS3, you can relatively easily replace the hard drive with anything up to a 300+ gigabyte drive, but there are millions of folks out there with 20GB Xbox 360s that are already hurting for hard drive space (no thanks to Rock Band!) I would hope that whatever DRM they might use would support external media for storage. An adequate DRM scheme shouldn’t force you to use the internal hard drives. If people were that intent on pirating movies, there are always other easier ways of doing it than signing up for Netflix and trying to defeat their DRM scheme.
Resolution and compression of content is another potential snag a streaming service will face. I’m not referring to the storage issue mentioned above, but in reference to image quality. If Netflix offers highly compressed 720p content and another similar service offers lesser compressed 1080p content for a similar price, suddenly the Netflix offering isn’t as attractive to the videophiles who demand the best quality available. Those folks will likely be sticking with Blu-ray for quite some time anyway, but it would certainly be nice if Netflix at least offered the option of full resolution content (leaving it to the customer to decide if they wish to wait through longer downloads or potentially pay a small price premium for the additional bandwidth the download would require.)
I think both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 would make absolutely capable platforms for a Netflix streaming service and I’m really anxious to see this ball actually get rolling. I’ve enjoyed Netflix in the past and fully intend on resubscribing in the future, but eliminating that pesky mail delay (for a hopefully shorter download delay) is something I could totally see myself doing without ever looking back. It would be an amazing bonus if the local Netflix clients allowed you to specify the target format. In other words, it would be nice to be able to use the Xbox 360 or PS3 front end to download a movie for playback on your iPod or PSP. While I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting the Xbox 360 to support the PSP in its interface, Netflix folks… if you’re somehow reading this, that would be a HUGELY popular feature with guys like me!
So what do you guys think? Does this sound like something you’d be interested in? If not, why? What would you love to see in their offering in terms of features, pricing, and other aspects? I’d love to see what you guys would do if implementing the plan were up to you (realizing that if you gave away the farm by say releasing movies without DRM at all, you’d be sued into oblivion by the movie studios.) Here’s your chance, sound off before they’re done secretly developing the software they don’t want us to know they’re developing! 
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8 responses so far ↓
1 Keith K // May 21, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Little to no concession? I don’t consider ownership of my property to be little or no concession.
Lets look at digital distribution products vs. hard copy media today:
XBLA games purchased and downloaded. Cannot be backed up, cannot be played on an additional machine owned by the purchaser of the media. Can only be used online so your identification can verified. If the hardware unit has to be replaced, the end user is raped.
PSN games used to be able to be able to be put on 5 separate machines on a single account, but thats being eliminated as well. (It has already affected my PSN software on my 2 units).
Games available for download as well as hard copy somehow are the same price, regardless of the hard copy not being bound to online restrictions or unit installation restrictions.
Movies and Music are the same deal. You buy but you do not own. You purchase music from iTunes and you are bound to use it through iTunes. You pay full price but do not get full access. You are not purchasing anything, you’re simply renting indefinitely. In the case of movies, its not even indefinitely.. its simply on a per-use basis or a time share.
Regardless of technical advancement or fidelity, there will always be concession and its called Consumer Rights.
Of course Im not knocking NetFlix.. at least they’re honest about basically being a digital rental service, but dont let any of the other forms of digital distribution fool you into think they’re anything different.
Just buy the DVD, buy the Blu-Ray, buy the CD buy the hardcopy software.. you’re getting alot more for your money. Support for digital distribution pipelines will suffocate us all eventually.
2 ajnokia // May 21, 2008 at 3:11 pm
@ Keith K
Long respose for a long article you wrote there.
But I agreee with you. Id rather have all my games on disc than pay to download a game. At least I can take my copies of games round to friends houses to play them. Yet with a download I can only put it on my PS3.
But it will be a while before Digital Downloads totally replace Hard Copy Media. First there needs to be fast speed broadband everywhere. When the next-gen consoles come out (PS4, Xbox 720, Nintendo (Insert silly gimmic name here) etc.) these consoles likley to have bigger file sizes for games. So if we are downloading games their needs to be fast enough internet speeds to download at a reasonable time. I dont want to download a 20gb game heck I don’t really want to download a 5gb game. Hence why Id rather buy a hard copy of the game.
3 Aaron // May 21, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Good Read. I think the Ps3 would be better fit for netflix due to the restrictions on the hard drive is not there compared to the 360. I have friends who only have the arcade version of the 360 so they couldnt really do to much netflix watching.
4 sonicjosh // May 21, 2008 at 3:52 pm
My news paper said that since it is 99$ it is close to the price of a standard DVD player; I think “I saw a 1080p upscale DVD player 2 days ago on newegg, for 67$”
5 Sean "Rothbart" Workman // May 21, 2008 at 4:04 pm
@Keith K: Ummm… I think you missed the point. I’m not proposing Netflix replace _buying_ movies, I’m talking about replacing rentals and replacing a traditional Netflix membership.
Also, the PSN gamesharing doesn’t work for the $40 games… it still works for the “typical” titles… to my knowledge there’s been no movement to eliminate the “5 machines” policy.
6 DarthVicious82 // May 21, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I don’t really believe the hard drive should be an issue with this service on EITHER console. According to Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/20/roku-reveals-first-netflix-set-top-box-gets-reviewed/) the first set-top player for Netflix from Roku does NOT have a hard drive. The media is full streaming. True, in order to have high def content, a hard drive will be necessary, but currently this service model cooked up by Netflix only supports standard def. It would be the job of the implementing device to upscale the image. Again…this is assuming that Netflix does not offer a different service model for the HD devices. If my time watching the rumor mill serves correctly, Netflix even sent out a survey to a subset of it’s current subscribers asking if having Netflix streaming capability on their Xbox 360 would be attractive. Seems like a good case for a huge Spring update reveal. We haven’t even BEGUN to delve into the issues of DRM protected media already available on PSN and XBLM. Why would Microsoft want to offer a “free” service next to it’s ala-carte Marketplace? Though I believe if there WAS a scheme in place to offer timed exclusives on XBLM…with an eventual role out to Netflix on demand (consider how newish movies are on Starz first…then get rolled onto the cheaper Encore movie packages), Microsoft would have an advantage. That advantage is that the Netflix streaming service currently works ONLY with the Windoze OS using the Microsoft Media Player. This would mean that Microsoft would already know how to implement the DRM features in the Netflix streaming service. Think about it. Your 360 can ALREADY stream media from your XP, MCE, or Vista machines through Windoze Media Player. What could be so difficult in creating a new UI for the Dashboard to access content that is ALREADY streaming through this same application? Hmm…
7 Meresin // May 22, 2008 at 12:07 am
If it comes to the PS3, if it is in high def, and if it provides a much bigger catalog than is currently available for streaming from Netflix, I’d be interested.
That’s an awful lot of ifs, I know. I have a bad feeling one of them will get in the way of me being able to use this streaming service. Either way, I can always plug my PC into my TV and watch it that way, so it doesn’t really matter one way or another.
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