Netflix on Xbox 360 is extremely disappointing.

It could be my fault.  Perhaps I had my expectations set too high.  I guess I fully expected to sit down at my Xbox 360, browse through Netflix’s amazing collection of movies and TV shows, click a few buttons and finally enjoy the ultimate home theater on-demand experience. Unfortunately Netflix on Xbox 360 is not that at all.

1. The browsing experience does not take place on the Xbox 360 at all.  Instead you have to browse and make your movie selection on a PC and then wait for the Xbox 360 to sync with your Netflix Instant Queue.
2. While browsing the Netflix Watch Instantly movies available, you will quickly find that the selection – well the selection sucks.  The currently listed New Arrivals include 2000’s Frequency, 1996’s Swingers and 1990’s Pretty Woman.
3. No HD quality videos available as far as I can see.  You will have to settle for DVD.
4. The delivery is actually pretty good.  Once you select a movie, it syncs to the Xbox in a matter of seconds, and you are up a and watching in under a minute.

To be fair, my disappointment is not Microsoft’s fault; unless you consider that they chose to partner with Netflix which seems like a really good idea on the surface.  Microsoft and Netflix could have done a better job of integrating the browsing experience into the Xbox Dashboard so I don’t have to bounce to a PC to select movies and them back to the Xbox to watch.

The real issue is with Netflix’s Watch Instantly selection, which they have touted on the PC for quite some time, and now on the Xbox 360.  The truth is the movies available are either very old, or films you probably haven’t heard of.

The Xbox 360 Video Marketplace on the other hand has a good selection, but you have to plan ahead as the download times ar way to long to consider “on-demand.”

Has anyone else had similar or better experiences with Xbox 360 video?

The update includes bug fixes, all samples now compile on both XNA Versions and on Windows (XP and Vista) and Xbox 360.  In addition, Ben also included new support for some older ATI video cards because he’s cool like that.

Thanks to everyone for the great reviews and comments about the book, which continues to be a best seller at Amazon.com.  If you have not had a chance to post your review at Amazon, we hope you will, and appreciate your support.

Its great to see all the conversation about the book over at the Microsoft XNA forums.  I want to encourage everyone to post book-specific questions at the P2P forum at wrox.com as well so we can be sure to respond to everyone’s queries and suggestions.

I would also love to see reader’s creations, hacks and mods they created using the book.  Feel free to post links to your games at the book’s forum at wrox.com.