Netflix on Wii - Shaky Start with a Good Future

In Fall 2009, Netflix and Wii announced a partnership that was probably designed to keep Wii machines selling now that Wii fever was dying down. Netflix members could pre-order a special Wii disk that would allow you to stream movies from the Wii to your TV should you have an internet connection. By mid-April 2010 the disks shipped out. One arrived to my mailbox and I couldn't wait to get started. Within five minutes we were watching Netflix movies, yet I kept asking: was this worth the wait?

Installation was easy enough: pop the disc in and follow instructions to retrieve the Wii code at www.netflix.com/wii. Within minutes you'll have a chance to look for movies by category. Of course, you'll need a Netflix subscription to do this.

Controls were easy as well. The direction pad's up-down control scrolls through categories while left-right scrolls through movies. Hold the trigger and you can find categories faster. Hold the "A" button and scroll through movies faster.

As for the categories and movies, there's no doubt you aren't getting the same ones as you would on Netflix. For now there are no Blu-Ray movies, and Blu-Ray streaming is probably a ways away. You do have the option of adding any of the online Netflix Play movies to the Watch Instantly Queue category. Kid and family friendly movies dominate selection. And the New Release movies aren't very new. There were none from 2010. The ones from 2009 included Paper Heart. The newest movie I saw wasn't even a movie: it was Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

I also browsed the movie and playing quality. Here's where the Netflix and Wii combination offers a mixed bag. My connection is a wireless one to a DSL router, so I expected some choppiness since I don't have higher-end internet. But I had no choppiness or interruption through three movies or scenes I previewed. There was approximately a 15 second loading time from movie choice to play on the Wii. Another neat feature was that when you pause the movie you could choose scenes that appeared to be in two-minute blocks, complete with a thumbnail. The only thing missing is a "search" feature, which would be handy since there's an average of 100 movies per category.

Yet picture quality, for now, is severely lacking. I have a High Definition television so I expected some downgrade from 1080p to 480p. But the picture quality didn't waiver from old to newer movies and shows. We first watched Neverending Story which was filmed in the early 80's. It looked as expected, with a flat tone and lack of eye-popping color. But when I played an episode of Man vs. Food, it was almost the same and slightly less quality than watching the same show on a regular 480p television. I also chose Bolt to see how an animated movie looks on the Wii. It appears as if it were a high-quality bootleg taped in a Russian theatre house.

This picture quality probably won't bother the kids. Again, there are lots of cartoons. And since most of the "adult" movies are from the '80s (like Cobra), I'd suggest going online and browsing the full list to see what you can add for the Watch Instantly Queue. Otherwise you might as well call this "TBS on Demand" for adults, while the five-and-under crowd can have instant access to a rainy day movie. The Netflix and Wii experience is off to a shaky start, but I can definitely see improvement in the future.