Wii owners need a broadband connection, a $9 or higher Netflix unlimited plan, and an instant-streaming disc to watch thousands of movies and TV episodes via the Internet. They can order a free disc at the .
Console Catch-Up
Some critics have knocked the Wii's streaming capabilities, which admittedly don't compare favorably with newer, more advanced living-room hardware. For starters, the Wii requires a Netflix disc, unlike the of Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, and other devices. And as Matt Peckham from PCWorld's Blog points out, the Wii doesn't do either:
"Nintendo's little-console-that-could, for all its game-related kudos, is strictly locked at 480p, the high-end spec for standard-definition TVs (sometimes called EDTV or "enhanced definition"). That amounts to just 640 by 480 (or 720 x 480, wide) lines of resolution in NTSC-based countries like the US. Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation, by comparison, run at 720p or 1080p, i.e. 1280 by 720 and 1920 x 1080 lines of resolution, respectively."
Good Enough for Now