Hasta La Ideas

Over the last year there’s been a slow but steady increase in the amount of streaming and downloadable content available online from Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Unbox, the iTunes Music Store, and countless other content providers. Better availability of streaming content means I’m less likely to clutter up my living-space with physical media that I have to store. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I bought a DVD.

Unfortunately, getting streaming content from the Internet to your television can still be challenging. We’ve written before about the Roku HD-XR, a set-top device which enables you stream both movies and television programs directly from Netflix to your television. We think it’s a great product, but we don’t particularly like the idea of another dedicated device in our entertainment center with limited functionality.

So you can imagine how pleased I was last Wednesday when I heard the official announcement that, beginning later this spring, the Nintendo Wii will support on-demand streaming of content from Netflix. If you have a Netflix account that includes on-demand streaming you can now sign up online to receive a free disc that, when inserted, will allow you to watch streaming content on your Wii.

The Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 have both supported Netflix streaming for quite some time. It’s nice to see Nintendo doing the same.