This, to me, is big news. I was perplexed by Netflix’s deal with Microsoft, in that you could only get Netflix streaming if you had a Gold Live account ($40-50/year). That’s not a ton of money, but I was never really willing to pay for online play to begin with. Once I upgraded to a PS3, I was waiting for this to come along.
There was a way to still stream Netflix movies with a PS3, involving your home computer. But my laptop is set up pretty poorly, and I lack 12 year old kids to fix it for me. Plus, I hadn’t gotten around to getting a Netflix account… This seals the deal for me.
I’m glad too, because when I moved into my place in June, I no longer had a roommate with a Blockbuster Online account, and my bluray-watching has slowed to a crawl. Now I’ll be able to *really *start wasting my time!
I’ve been using PlayOn media server but it will be nice to not have to have my PC turned on so I can stream movies through my PS3 to the TV now. Apparently to start you will actually have to put in a disc to enable Netflix streaming, but this is rumored to be a way to get around the MS exclusivity agreement as the ability is not built into the PS3. Or, the guys at Netflix don’t want to wait for the next big firmware update for the PS3 to include the ability.
Either way I’ll be happy to use it, especially if it has HD streaming.
How will this affect playstation store rentals? I’ve rented about 5 movies from PSN. I don’t watch movies more than once all that much so i haven’t bought any. Once I move to Netflix there won’t be a reason for movie downloads. At least for me.
I don’t know if you’ve used Netflix’s streaming before now, but the selection of just-out-on-DVD movies is sparse (basically, whatever Starz is willing to co-op on), whereas older and odder titles are plentiful for streaming. Works well enough for me, but if you’d been buying the newest and hottest movies through PSN, nothing’s going to change.
I, on the other hand, had gotten a Roku box after coming to terms with Netflix never coming to PS3. The Roku is great, but I’d love the ability to edit and add to my list. I’ve requested the PS3 “install” disc from Netflix to give it a try. If nothing else, Roku can just move to the same secondary TV where my old Tivo is recording nothing but South Park, Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Japanese Iron Chef episodes to watch before bed.
Knowing nothing of the license agreements between Microsoft and Netflix, I gotta ask…why doesn’t Netflix offer an ISO to download for the PS3 functionality? Seems like a better idea than “renting” out what are essentially driver update discs.