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Top 100 – #7 NXE’s Most Popular Feature Is Netflix?!?!

January 2nd, 2009 at 11:00 am · 9 Comments

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top100-7Microsoft promised to bring us an Xbox 360 paradigm shift akin to black and white television moving to color with their NXE (New Xbox Experience) update this past fall.  Apparently all those comments about the 360 “focusing on games” and “Xbox Video Marketplace” being the ultimate one-stop-shop for video content are old and busted… the new hotness?  Netflix streaming.  Yep, that’s right.  Not only that, it seems to be the feature everyone talks about when referencing the update… really?!?!

Little did Microsoft know (that’s called “sarcasm” kiddies) the most popular feature in this paradigm shift would be the one that requires you to subscribe to two different monthly services and have broadband, the desire to watch (older) movies in varying degrees of high-defedness (that can be a word, right?) and one last thing… a PC to manage your queue because the Xbox 360 can’t manage it for you.

It seems a little ass-backwards to me that the most popular feature of the update was one that would seem to nut-punch most of the catalog titles (industry-speak for “old movies”) from Xbox Video Marketplace.  By the time a person buys one or two movies in a month from Xbox Video Marketplace, they could have paid for their Netflix subscription and gotten dozens of movies streamed for the same amount of money.  In addition to the change of heart Microsoft seems to have had for the whole “console as a video entertainment device”, one has to wonder what percentage of 360 owners have the magic trifecta of Xbox Live Gold, a Netflix subscription, and broadband?  Sure, I bet a lot of folks that frequent a site like SarcasticGamer.com do, but in the grand scheme of things… of the millions of 360 owners… it has to be a fairly small percentage.  What did everybody else get from this paradigm shift of an update?  A party system?  Avatars?  Nut-punched themes that have their designs covered up by the interface?

I find myself looking at the library Netflix is offering via their streaming service and while it is growing and it does contain a lot of titles (decent ones too), pretty much the only thing I find compelling are the TV show entries.  That said, this is definitely a win for Netflix in my book.  Their name and logo are slapped across Xbox Live cards and Xbox 360 boxes in retail stores everywhere now and to be honest, the premise of instant access to 12,000+ movies SOUNDS great. It’s only in practice that you’ll likely find that the resource will go 99.99% unused for most people and is probably better described as a “toss in” feature as opposed to a premium feature you should consider paying more for… that is unless you’re high tech enough to have a 360, broadband, the knowledge of the whole set up and somehow DON’T have a DVR to record TV shows when they’re actually on…  I kid, I kid.  Mostly…

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Related posts:

  1. Xbox Experience will deliver Netflix in HD
  2. Netflix vs XBLM and PSN?
  3. Microsoft Announces Partnership with Netflix
  4. Netflix pulls out of NXE! Opts for PS3.
  5. Netflix Starts Progression Of Direct To TV Streaming

Tags:
Categories: Xbox 360

  • Keith K

    *cough*not available outside the US*cough*

  • http://www.talkingship.com Jitterbug

    Wow, Rothbart. Come on buddy, I know you hate the X-Box, but you should be willing to admit that this is a really cool feature. I have noticed that several of my friends on Live are utilizing this function. It was the most exciting thing that I saw in the new update, and it sure beats the crap out of Sony’s lame HOME offering. It is especially great for people who love to watch cheesy horror flicks. To have thousands of movies at your disposal to choose from can’t possibly be a BAD thing!!

  • http://twitter.com/pmsharlequin Harlequin

    We just signed up for Netflix and I agree with Rothbart.

    The “watch instantly” movie catalog is like the Walmart $1 movie bin. You really have to dig deep to find a good title. I’m sure this list will improve with time, but for now it makes me wonder when “new arrivals” include titles such as: “Hello Dolly”, “Species”, and “Emma”.

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com Sean “Rothbart” Workman

    @Jitterbug: I don’t “hate” the Xbox… I simply prefer the PS3. As for the Netflix feature, the irony of its addition and popularity is hilarious in my opinion… and why are you comparing Netflix and Home? Home’s on this Top 100 list too you know… ;)

    For those folks owning a 360, subscribing to Xbox Live Gold, subscribing to Netflix, having broadband internet AND loving cheesy horror flicks, Microsoft is lookin’ out for ya! You’re right Jutterbug, I was kinda harsh. For all twelve of you, they hit that one outta the park! LOL!

    @Harlequin: LOL @ the $1 bin comment.

  • D3NNIS601

    Okay, I know you hate the Xbox 360, but wow, Netflix isn’t bad at all. It’s a cool and usefull feature, you can watch movies just by one click in HD on your 360, how is that a bad thing?

    Netflix isn’t the best feature in the NXE, the party system is. Microsoft just advertised Netflix more which gave everyone the impression of it being the best thing on the NXE. The party system is perfect, you can chat with 8-people no matter what you’re doing, and there are no flaws at all.

    Also the Marketplace is a whole lot easier to scroll through all the content and most loading times don’t even exists or they’re are much slower.

    I also have a Ps3 also and when I compare the NXE to Home, NXE by far. Home dosen’t appeal to me at all, and almost everyone I talk to thinks the same. I didn’t buy an expensive gameing console to walk around and watch other people play games or play mini-games that get boring…quick.

    I know Home is just in the beta phase, but the overall idea of it is just not that great. It seems like Sony just wanted to finally say that their online has something LIVE dosen’t. The problem is, LIVE dosen’t want it.

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com Sean “Rothbart” Workman

    @D3NNIS601: I don’t get it… why compare Home to NXE? Why not compare turnips to wingnuts or mice to wheat pennies. They’re completely different things.

    Also, I never dogged on “Netflix” per se, but Microsoft’s about face and gamers’ slobbering all over it. Other than TV episodes, the Netflix streaming currently amounts to the racks at the video store most people ignore… plain and simple. NO NEW RELEASES. That’s a decent summary right there. When/If you go to the video store, do you ignore ALL NEW RELEASES every time? If so, Netflix streaming might actually be the next best thing for you… for me, it would sit unused like the dozens (if not hundreds) of free Video On Demand movies I’ve had access to via my cable company.

    Also note that I didn’t say the NXE update was worthless… they _did_ improve the interface, yes… but the chatter over Netflix (and not the “good” part of Netflix) is what’s so amusing.

  • D3NNIS601

    @Rothbart

    Yes, I do know Netflixx has very few good movies in their instant que, but the overall idea of it is just great in itself, hopefully we will be able to get the new releases in a touch of a button soon.

    I compared NXE to Home, not becasue they’re similar, but because they are both huge features added in their online service at about the same time, and it shows which online service improved more on overall quality.

    btw., what are your thoughts on Home.

  • Drauglim

    Wow Rothbart, it’s funny because I actually do skip the new section (it costs a lot more) and I haven’t seen every movie ever made. I think that maybe I should look into the Netflix function I heard Cheapy say there’s a free trial.

    PS. Is this just another time that you complain about a good feature because you aren’t a gold member. I know that it should be a feature without the gold membership, but that doesn’t just turn it into utter crap.

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com Sean “Rothbart” Workman

    @Drauglim: it’s not Netflix I was complaining about, it was that Microsoft was so “pro-gaming, don’t worry about movies” and “gaming first” during the HD-DVD/Blu-ray war, then were so “XBL Video Marketplace is great”, you don’t need anything else… now the most popular feature of their “paradigm shift” upgrade is a non-gaming feature that directly cannibalizes older XBL Video Marketplace movie sales and it ARBITRARILY requires a Gold Membership… these movies aren’t coming from MS servers… there’s no bandwidth to recover the expenses from, that’s all on Netflix to handle. The topper being that you can’t actually _manage_ your queue via the 360, only view it and watch movies. Also, since NXE has been released, that same functionality is available on a wide variety of devices that don’t require a membership like XBL Gold.

    Those are the funny things about this whole setup.