We have a video coming later but couldn’t wait to share this little nugget from our interview this morning in Aaron Greenberg’s swank hotel room here in Houston.
Greenberg told us this morning that Xbox Live Experience’s highly anticipated Netflix functionality will not only deliver thousands of movies and TV shows directly to your console (streamed not downloaded), but its going to do it in HD.
“Netflix has been testing their HD product for some time now, and we’re excited to announce that it’s ready to go with Xbox Experience,” said Greenberg.
The uber-awesome Netflix functionality does require both a Netflix subscription and an Xbox Live Gold membership. Beyond that, implementing the feature is as simple as punching in a four digit code issued on the Xbox blade into your Netflix account, and presto! A world of TV and movies awaits!
Additionally, you can hop in and out of your games while you watch your videos and the Xbox keeps track of where you left things.
Another cool feature you might not have heard about is the ability to watch movies with your friends. If you’re both subscribers you can fire up a flick, make snide comments about the actors, and host an intercontinental movie night.
I think I smell Sarcastic Gamer Flick night!
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I love it!!
I’m getting already have a netflix subscription so now all I need to do is get my RRoD fixed.
This really is awesome and since I’m already a Netflix subscriber it’s even better.
Unfortunately this just opens up a world of new questions such as:
How compressed are the movies?
Will they look good enough that I won’t miss blu-ray?
How fast does our internet connection have to be to be able to stream fluidly?
Are they going to offer newer movies or is going to be mostly back catalogue movies like they do now with their Watch It Now?
If they do offer newer movies, will they be available the same day as the discs come out?
Will we eventually be charged more for streaming HD rather than SD, just like people who rent blu-rays are charged more?
No matter what, this is pretty sweet to see Netflix implementing. I have a feeling that I’ll still be renting the blu-rays through the mail because I absolutely love the 1080p and lossless audio, but this will come in handy when you have people over and want to watch something right then (plus buffering time).
Hmmmm…… wait a day for Blu-Ray disc from netflix and clean dust off PS3 or just just sit back and watch it now. Tough choice.
Also thanks for that tidbit about watching movies with your friends over XBL, Doc. None of the other sites I read about this on mentioned that.
Kinda reminds me of when HD-DVD implemented this feature:
http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2007/12/shut-ins-rejoice.html
I remember something being said on E3 that there was going to be videos streamed but only the ones on your list.
Wow, thanks for this nugget of Movie-like Goodness. I’ve been asking everyone I know on XBLive about this very thing. I don’t think it will be enought to make me get rid of my Blue-ray (PS3) , but it’s definatly great news for family movie nights.