Microsoft, Netflix Team to Bring Movies to Xbox 360 Consoles

Microsoft and Netflix are jumping into bed today, it was announced at the annual E3 Media and Business Summit in Los Angeles, via an exclusive partnership which will bring select streaming content to the Xbox 360. This is an expansion of Netflix's plans to bring movies to home theaters via the Internet, which it already does via its Web site and the Roku Netflix set top box.

(Check out PC World's live blog of the announcement.)

This new partnership will let Xbox 360 owners who are also Netflix subscribers stream "thousands of movies" to their game console. To use this service, much like the current Roku player, you'll have to initially select the movies via the Netflix Instant Queue feature on its Web site so you can later view them on your Xbox 360.

Still Netflix is only making a small fraction of its titles available for download through its partnerships with Roku and now Microsoft. The lack of titles appears to only be a minor complaint of the Roku offering, considering the player is apparently out of stock. Xbox 360 owners already have access to movie titles and video content through the Xbox Live Marketplace Video Store.

Comments

This service is already available. Google VMC Netflix. This app serves as a media extender for media center. It's still buggy, but it works. Worth a look if you don't want to wait until this service becomes available.

wizzardofozz2004

July 15, 2008

4:26 AM PT

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