Netflix on the Wii - my experience

• May 13, 2010
• James Skemp
• article

After receiving my instant streaming disc for the Wii a long while back, I finally popped it in my Wii and gave it a try.

For this experiment I watched three episodes of 30 Rock: Season 1. I wasn't expecting much for quality, and each episode isn't very long, so I thought I was giving the Wii a very good chance.

Overall, I was extremely impressed in the entire experience, and definitely think Nintendo's own video channels can learn a lot.

Unlike on the PS3 and Xbox 360, most of the functionality to browse and watch videos is available right from the control, with on-screen cues. For example, to start watching a video, press '1.' However, I didn't pause the videos, and am not exactly sure how that would be done (but assume the A button).

The quality of the videos was much better than I expected, with TV-quality picture and sound. I do have a widescreen television (Sony Bravia) and while most content on the Wii displays in a standard-sized box, I had to manually switch to widescreen to view the video as expected, but since I have to do that for everything but the Xbox Netflix experience, I was expecting that.

Unfortunately, since the Wii's control is the only console that I have that doesn't offer a rechargeable solution, I probably will not watch another Netflix streaming video on it. If it was my own choice to watch Netflix streaming videos on my television, however, I absolutely would.

Nice job Netflix.

• netflix
• wii