Nintendo Wii will help Netflix streaming dominate the living room

Last week, Sony, Dolby, and Netflix announced that the PlayStation 3 would be getting an all new native Netflix app today that supports 1080p streams and 5.1 channel audio without the need for a disc, as it turns out, the Nintendo Wii today has gotten a similar app update.

With a software update today and a free app from the Wii Shop Channel, the Nintendo Wii can stream Netflix Instant movies without a disc, too. Though the console supports neither High Definition nor surround sound, this update has much further-reaching consequences than the PlayStation 3's.

According to Nintendo data in August, there have been 30 million Wii consoles sold in the U.S., more than double the number of PlayStation 3 consoles.

In fact, of all the Netflix-ready devices that connect to our televisions, the Nintendo Wii could be the most common.

In its first quarter earnings call last April, Netflix reported that it had 14 million subscribers, and 55% of them were streaming their movies. Those figures constituted a 35% increase in subscribers and a 19% increase in the per-subscriber use of Netflix Instant streaming. Unfortunately, Netflix did not provide a breakdown for the types of devices subscribers were streaming their content to.

Nonetheless, by eliminating the need for a Netflix Wii disc, it is now even easier for subscribers to stream content to their living rooms on one of the most common devices to support the streaming platform.