The Netflix streaming service integration has been far and away the more meaningfully kick-ass feature introduced in the New Xbox Experience. I've been a loyal Netflix customer for a good six years running, and I'm a fan of the service, though until now streaming movies and TV shows to my PC has been an occasional novelty at best. I appreciated the gesture of Netflix adding the streaming service at no additional cost, but hunkering over a laptop to watch Clue isn't the greatest user experience. Being able to access all that content through my Xbox 360 was a game-changer.

The ability to watch full seasons of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits without leaving the couch has had an awesomely detrimental effect on my evenings, though there are some issues. Aside from more “HD” content, what I'd really like is the ability to add and remove items from my streaming queue directly through the Xbox 360. Apparently I'm not the only one, as MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo brought up the issue of direct queue management with Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg during a recent conference call. Greenberg acknowledged that it's an issue they've heard from users, and that they're looking into ways to address it.

What the Netflix guys will tell you that queue management is meant to be on the PC, where you can search a lot of content and see reviews. On the Xbox 360, the idea was this was supposed to be a viewing experience. That’s the way we designed it… We’ve heard the feedback ands I think the team will look at what the options.

The Netflix streaming service integration has been far and away the more meaningfully kick-ass feature introduced in the New Xbox Experience. I've been a loyal Netflix customer for a good six years running, and I'm a fan of the service, though until now streaming movies and TV shows to my PC has been an occasional novelty at best. I appreciated the gesture of Netflix adding the streaming service at no additional cost, but hunkering over a laptop to watch Clue isn't the greatest user experience. Being able to access all that content through my Xbox 360 was a game-changer.

The ability to watch full seasons of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits without leaving the couch has had an awesomely detrimental effect on my evenings, though there are some issues. Aside from more “HD” content, what I'd really like is the ability to add and remove items from my streaming queue directly through the Xbox 360. Apparently I'm not the only one, as MTV Multiplayer's Stephen Totilo brought up the issue of direct queue management with Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg during a recent conference call. Greenberg acknowledged that it's an issue they've heard from users, and that they're looking into ways to address it.

What the Netflix guys will tell you that queue management is meant to be on the PC, where you can search a lot of content and see reviews. On the Xbox 360, the idea was this was supposed to be a viewing experience. That’s the way we designed it… We’ve heard the feedback ands I think the team will look at what the options.

I agree, the queues seem totally unnecessary.

I never understood the whole "Instant Queue" thing anyway. If I have unlimited access to the movies instantly, why do I need to arrange them in a list or have a queue? With that being said,  being able to see the entire library from my xbox would be nice.

I would appreciate it if I could set up Netflix via my Xbox 360, rather than jumping through the hoops of owning an outside Netflix account and setting it up to work with the Box. That's a major turn off for me and my laziness has prevented me from using Netflix. But hey, these avatars are pretty bitchin'.

Agreed fully, sure my computer's in the same room as my xbox, but i'll be damned if they expect me to wonder 10ft to the left to add more movies to my list.

Its an outrage!!!

That said they really need to work on the streaming HD content, but that comes in a close second to me sitting on my lazy ass.

I was wondering myself, but so far, the service is quite nice. I'll be dropping my GameFly rentals by 2 next month, and so that will dovetail nicely with a 2-disc NetFlix subscription for streaming movies. Hell, I've yet to put a single rental disc in my queue, and it'll likely stay that way until I get bored enough to actually rent Kekko Kamen. ^_^

you can remove movies from your queue, you just can't add them.

I got a netflix account just for this, and it is by far one of the best ideas i've ever had.  I dont mind using the instant que from my laptop, it's innstantaneous, and is a much smoother interface.I us an SD tv and i definitely would not enjoy going through all of those menus on my xbox, i can barely read stuff as it is.  words cannot describe how awesome it is to be playing gears one minute, then watching enter the dragon the next, without getting up.  I know that sounds extremely lazy, but it's still awesome  

Again with the whole 'Microsoft neglecting Australian customers'...thing. Sigh.

the Netflix platform is designed to be cross-hardware compatible so the interface is very similar on every device. If they had to retool it just for the 360 it probably wouldn't have arrived. Their priority is to support the broad base of users and the actual Netflix player first and tweaking it for one platform second. By keeping it simple they can run it out on a wide range of products in a very short time and increase their audience very very quickly.

I tried it on the 360 and while the queue looks a bit slicker I would rather watch on my Samsung 2550 Blu-ray player. It's easier and faster to access. It's a one button activation.

I wish they would support netflix in Canada I would be a HUGE fan of it. I think you guys are being a little bit picky. I would appreciate just having the service here.

can anyone comment on how the library is through the 360? are there a lot of older classics in there? thats mostly what im interested in and would be sold if that were the case.

@cgrady

Easiest thing to do is sign up for a two week unlimited one disc trial. Then you can check out the content. Most of the streaming stuff is b-movie class with a few big hits appearing from the Starz network. If you like old movies you might find stuff that you want but the 360 content limitation is fairly negligible overall. The truth is there really aren't that many great new movies being streamed as it is and those are the ones with most of the licensing issues.

IMO it is nesesary just because sometimes im browsing the selection and i see a movie i might wanna see later on, i just add it to the list and that way it remembers the stuff i wanna see without me forgetting and having to browse all that stuff for what i want to see , i just look at the list and there it is.
Im not saying i dont want to browse all the library, i want to ,but i also like to have that list i can go see it knowing i want to see whats on it without having to  browse every single time .

I finally got my Xbox back from the (hot)RROD shop & tested Netflix last night. The missing queue is the first thing I noticed. No ability to search.  My biggest fear about asking Netflix to change anything is that they might tack on another $2-$3 a month for the feature & pass it to everyone across the board.

For instance, I've been a Vonage customer for less than 6 months & using their cheapest $15/mo 500 minute plan. They just sent me an email that they are upping the cost to $18/mo!  edit: there was no change in service, they're just cash grabbing.

Before you know it, it'll be as expensive as cable TV & nothing will have changed all that much to make it a better experience.

vmcNetFlix for Media Center does this. You can manage your "Instant Queue", watch a movie on the fly, and browse the entire watch now library. I agree, having to manage on the computer keeps me from watching things on impulse. I liked how I could browse the top list on vmcNetFlix, but I didn't like that it was buggy and crashed. I think they should seriously reconsider their list management requirement and let you at the least browse by categories.

Totally agree, the queue for streaming is irrelevant. I recently added about 50 movies to my queue (i think i have about 150 total) and moving all the way down the list to get to ghostbusters is kind of irritating. It would be cool if you could sort them by star rating or various other criteria (genre, aplhabetical, etc.) in a format similar to the new achievements lists. All that page real estate does not need to be taken up by gigantic box shots.

I do wish as well that the Netflix queue was improved upon or gone all together.

I just hope that with the surge of new users getting netflix, thet they increase with content available for the instant streaming. I have plenty to watch right now, but it would be fantastic if i could put The Shield or Battlestar Galactica or Dexter to my instant list and just watch from my room.

That's not really even that bad for me. My own problem is with the resolution. I want to set my own, but it won't let you buffer anything so....

another netflex article...