Microsoft releases Xbox Experience update; streaming Netflix is bad ass

For about a half hour yesterday, I was able to dive the New Xbox Experience and all was good in the universe. For those of you who just tuned out when you read “Xbox” come back cause there’s more to it than mere video games this time. The NXE not only brings a redesign to the graphical interface of your Xbox 360 but also provides Netflix subscribers the ability to use their “Instantly Watch” feature to stream movie on your queue whenever you feel like doing so. Yup, you now have a plethora of movie & TV show choices available to you at any time at no extra charge (yes, I see the irony that now you need 2 subscriptions here to enjoy this but I was already so it works our for me). It took me about 2 mins. to start my first stream, Chavez, a documentary on the legendary mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez. The video was clean (although I didn’t watch any HD content, I’m told the quality is pretty good), there was no hiccups and I was allowed to pause, rewind & fast foward at any time. On the down side it seems that at the last minute, Columbia Pictures (which is owned by Sony, who produces the rival Playstation 3 system) has decided to not make their films available on the service as they had previosuly said they would so the choices available has dindled down a bit but there still plenty of films for you to stream. Apple TV? Meh. TiVo? So last year. This here is the future! Once this takes off, I’m certain that networks will follow and put their shows in the same kind of system (although you can already watch shows via this service, and in HD no less). Hulu on Xbox? It’s only a matter of time….