The General Theory of RIAtivity

Today the New Xbox 360 Experience (NXE) was released — I updated my Xbox 360 this afternoon to check it out mainly for the addition of Netflix. I’ve been using Apple TV since May 2008 and wanted to examine how Xbox 360 Netflix holds up against it.

Initial Setup – Winner: Apple TV
The Netflix bits aren’t downloaded and installed automatically as part of the NXE update, you have to separately select to download the Netflix Xbox 360 bits, this is likely because of the paltry hard drive space on stock Xbox 360’s. Microsoft probably didn’t want to put anymore down on the hard drive than necessary and leave it as an opt in for users. Account creation is typical — you have to enter a code presented on-screen on the Netflix website so your account and Xbox 360 console are associated.

Apple TV, on the other hand, is very easy to setup. Take it out of the box, connect the cables to your TV/ home theater system and power it on. It walks you through wireless LAN association and associating with your iTunes account.

Browsing – Winner: Apple TV
My biggest complaint with Netflix on Xbox 360 is that the Netflix catalog of streaming movies isn’t browsable on the console. This is a gaping hole in functionality if you ask me and probably the one feature most folks expected to have. Instead, you have to add movies to your Instant Play queue from your computer. They then appear immediately on your Xbox 360 console in the Netflex queue screen and you can play them on your TV.

Video Quality – Winner: Apple TV
The first movie I tested streaming with Netflix on Xbox 360 was “Apollo 13″ in standard resolution — the time from hitting “Play” to the movie starting was not bad, but not as good as Apple TV, and it was noticeably lesser quality, not terrible, but the differnce in video quality would be noticeable even to non-videophiles. Apple TV’s video compression and quality is hands down superior.

Movie Selection – Winner: Tie
This is where I would have thought Netflix on Xbox 360 walked away with the win. The vastness of the Instant Play catalog is a real plus, especially considering you can watch as many Instant Play movies as you like for as little as $8.99/month. However, Apple TV pulls it out making this category a tie because of their one killer feature: same day availability of movies on Apple TV as the DVD release. Folks are more than willing to pay near DVD full price for a movie if they can download it on the DVD release date to their console — my family is proof positive of this! The day “WALL-E” released we bought it on Apple TV for $14.99 and have done so for other movies. Netflix’s clinging to only making new releases available by DVD via mail will quickly become antiquated. With an Xbox 360 and a 20 mbps pipe into my home I’m begging someone to take my money so I can download their movie on the DVD release date. If the issue is distribution contracts/licensing, I suggest the Microsoft and Netflix folks get working on figuring that out, otherwise they should consider changing their name to USPSflix instead of Netflix.

Update: after further thought it seems unfair to ding Netflix for not having same day as DVD movie availability. This is more a shortcoming of the Xbox 360 Video Marketplace. However, it is entirely fair to ding Microsoft for having a disjointed video offering now with the Video Marketplace (which Microsoft runs) and Netflix. They need to iron this out so there’s one place to go for video rental, purchasing, and streaming in the Xbox 360 interface.

Overall Winner: Apple TV

I’m hoping in the next rev of Netflix on Xbox 360 things will improve and I understand it’s their first step. In the meantime, I’ll use Netflix on my Xbox 360 for older movies, documentaries and arcane stuff I can’t find on Apple TV, but my Apple TV will remain the marquis piece of my home theater device collection (after the 50″ plasma TV and 5.1 surround sound system of course!).

Here’s another review on the New Xbox 360 Experience. I don’t agree with all the reviewer’s comments but it’s another perspective and a thorough review.