A couple of months ago upon hearing about the planned integration of Netflix streaming movies directly into your tv through your 360 I was pumped!
As I previously discussed with Los I believed that this was the future of movie watching, you sit down, browse through every movie ever made, press a button and the movie will automatically start playing. Way faster than driving over to Blockbuster and picking out a movie, also faster than getting up off your couch, selecting a movie from your library and popping it into the dvd player, an ease of use which is what made MP3s so popular (besides downloading for free ofcourse).
Then I fired up the Netflix…
What a disappointment! Upon viewing the selections they have on the Netflix website in the “Watch Instantly” tab I quickly realized that Microsoft had made sure that their movie business on the Movie Marketplace on Xbox Live was not to be outdone by the Netflix integration. Take one glance at the “Newest Arrivals” page, 98% of their new titles consists of obscure titles such as “Cyborg Soldier”, “Princess Stallion”, “That’s So Raven”, “Spy School” or get this…”Josh Kirby,Time Warrior: Human Pets”!
At first it seemed like a conflict of interest, you have MS who have built up THE premiere online rental streaming service for movies and tv series, then you have Netflix, who have THE number one rent-by-mail business. With the integration of Netflix I thought I’d be able to spend my $8.99 a month and get all the newly released movies plus any and all TV shows at the press of a button without having to spend 4-6 dollars per movie rental from the video marketplace, but boy was I wrong. No NEW titles, no GOOD titles, missing TONS of great tv series, about the only thing that it’s good for right now is to watch is “30:Rock” (which is absolutely fucking hilarious! Imagine Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan in one room) and “The Office”.
Final Verdict:
Right now the system thats in place is a start. Give me the option to browse through Netflix’s library from my Xbox 360 AND most importantly start putting movies/tv series that matter and I’ll gladly buy a monthly membership. For now I’ll keep watching 30 Rock till my 2 week trial expires…
-MEAHT
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