Netflix for Nintendo Wii very likely

Nintendo’s Wii might not be left out of the Netflix streaming party, as one blog reports that the service is in testing and should be ready to roll soon.

The report from StreamingMedia is a bit shaky, but it’s getting a lot of traction in the blogosphere, coming hot on the heels of Sony bringing Netflix to the Playstation 3. StreamingMedia’s Dan Rayburn, cites an anonymous source who says Netflix is coming, and claims to have photographic proof but won’t show it in order to protect the source.

Thing is, I don’t doubt that Nintendo can and will bring Netflix to the Wii. The real question is when, and we still don’t have an answer. It’s possible that Netflix streaming could show up on the Wii before the holidays this year, but Rayburn said Nintendo could also hold off until it releases the Wii HD, which is reportedly penned in for 2010.

But the Wii HD itself, which would supposedly add high-definition graphics to compete more directly with Sony and Microsoft, only exists in rumors. There have been enough reports that I believe the idea, but whether the console is coming next year or in 2011 depends on who you ask, and either way it’s still a long time from now.

It totally makes sense for Nintendo to add Netflix to a high-definition console, as it would probably be more conducive to multimedia in the first place. As for the current-generation Wii, I think the addition of Netflix would seem a bit lopsided. There’s really no other way to watch films on the Wii, and streaming movies, however desirable, would seem like a tacked-on offering. Better for Nintendo, I think, to wait for the mythical Wii HD and use Netflix as a selling point.

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