Review: The New Xbox Experience Netflix Queue

Sadly, watching movies takes precedence over playing video games in my abode. It's hard to find an excuse to drag out the Xbox to watch movies. But with the release of the New Xbox Experience also came the release of the Netflix Instant Queue, something that (until now) was scarce to be found on a Mac.

Just as you see here, Netflix has hundreds of movies available for streaming. They range from indie films to documentaries, from Stanley Kubrick to The Karate Kid. The list is long and spans through great and awful movies alike.

The picture and sound quality is amazing. I was really impressed with how one episode of The Office looked.

Granted, you'll need a pretty good high speed Internet connection to enjoy it to its fullest capacity. Otherwise, it'll stop occasionally to load. It can get tedious, so make sure your modem is up to it.

One aspect of it that bugs me is how the movies are displayed. As you can see above, it's a list of films that you can watch listed left to right. It's pretty simplistic and user-friendly, which is good. Those movies are all in your "Instant Queue," which you control from your computer. If you want to browse for other movies on Netflix, you have to do it on your computer. My problem with it is that it's a system that's highly based on doing a lot of work on your laptop before setting it up, which doesn't bode well for me. Hopefully they'll make it more interactive so the whole website will be accessible from your Xbox.

Otherwise, it's easy to set up, it's cheap and it gives you access to a lot of great movies. Hopefully, with Netflix gaining in popularity, the selection of films will only grow. Definitely check this out.