I had a chat with the team from Netflix this afternoon to find out everything you need to know about the service – price, bandwidth requirements and more.

What is Netflix?

It’s an online service that streams as many film and TV programs as you can watch for a flat monthly subscription. Depending on your internet connection speed, you get up to full HD 1080p 5.1 surround sound streams on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Obviously people on the Wii will be limited to standard definition pictures.

Based on the excitement levels of my Twitter feed this morning, key selling points are the first 3 seasons of Arrested Development and 14 years worth of Top Gear. Me, I’m more excited about watching Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse again.

How much does it cost?

£5.99 per month in the UK and €6.99 per month in Ireland. Sign up online here and get a free month’s trial.

Do I have to use Facebook?

Nope. Those of you who don’t like sharing Facebook details will have to log out of Facebook first, then go to the Netflix page and look for the tiny print below the Facebook button that says “or sign up using email address”. Here’s a picture to help you find it. Netflix sign-up without Facebook

Will it run on my machine(s)?

Netflix is available on pretty much any internet-connected device you can think of:

• PlayStation 3
• Xbox 360
• Wii
• Windows
• Mac
• Android
• iPad
• Other tablet PCs
• Apple TV
• Smart TVs

When it comes to picture quality, Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt recommended a 4Mbps to 6Mbps line to get full 1080p and 5.1 surround sound quality. A key point of the service is that it will dynamically scale the quality of your show up or down based on the available download bandwidth, rather than stuttering like many streaming systems do. I’ve been using it on my 3.6Mb connection and get very good quality.

Watching shows across different machines is easy. Let’s you watched part of a show on your iPad while sitting on the train. Once you get home, fire up the Xbox and Netflix can resume the show from where you left off. As you would expect these days, you can also scan forwards and backwards through shows.

Why is everything really old?

They do update the content on a daily basis, as and when new distribution agreements go live. “In a typical week we’ll go through several hundred new pieces of content, adding them to the catalogue” said Hunt.

The idea is that Netflix complements rather than tries to compete with iTunes or 4OD to get the latest films and TV. Instead, they’ve focused on a very diverse back catalogue, covering odd shows like Grosse Point Blank or Breaking Bad that you may have heard about but don’t want them enough to buy a box set. The service is very popular with people who like to binge on shows, watching 2 or 3 episodes at a time.

Can I use it overseas?

Your subscription is a global one – sign up in the UK and you’ll be able to use Netflix around the world. If you’re in the US, you’ll have access to the US catalogue. On a Latin American connection, you’ll have their catalogue. In the UK we get all sorts of custom content, with British shows like Fawlty Towers and Inbetweeners. Those of you who are technically-minded can always use a VPN to connect to the overseas libraries.

How do I find the good stuff?

Shows on Netflix have an obscene number of tags to ensure you can find whatever type of programme you’re looking for, with strangely specific groupings like “Dark films featuring a Strong Female Lead” You can also search for specific films and actor names, or leave it up to the software to make recommendations based on your ratings.

Rather annoyingly, the ratings are per show so for long running programmes like Dexter where the first year was the finest, most tightly-scripted season I’ve ever seen and the last season was a big pile of wibbly poo, I can’t make that distinction in my rating.

Is it safe for my kids?

Yes. Netflix carries no “adult” content and there’s a parental locking system you can use to prevent teens from watching BBFC 18-rated shows. Because Netflix allows you to stream across different machines, this is entirely separate from the Xbox, PS3 and Wii parental controls. They’ve also created an area called “Just for Kids” which is specially designed for children to view and navigate – even the developers wanted something that they can confidently leave their kids watching.

How do I stop Netflix publishing my activity to Facebook?

On individual viewings
When you start each session look for the Facebook logo with “Don’t share this” in the top right corner. Hit that.

On an ongoing basis:

1. Click the drop-down next to your name in the top-right corner of Facebook
2. Click Account Settings
3. Click Apps
4. Click Netflix
5. Click the X next to “Add app activity to your timeline”

Do they have plans to offer video game rentals?

No.

Still interested? Here’s that sign-up link again.

Steam are holding a week-long sale right now for this game and for the new co-op character add-on called Roesha – One Bad Mutha. You can buy The Baconing for just under a fiver and Roesha for 99p. The full game is also available on Xbox Live for 1200 MSP and Roesha for 120MSP.

Here’s what I’ve been doing for the last 30 minutes. It flickered less on my screen though. Urgh… Sorry about that. Will try to fix it for the next time. Pop over to my Livestream channel, you might catch me broadcasting over there.

Okay, I’ve done another livestream for The Baconing and this one seemed to work so I’ll replace the flickery video. Ta-dah!

Most of the technical demos were pretty dry, as you might expect. I have spared you the video footage of me failing to draw a 70° angle, so consider yourself lucky. We did see a couple of stands showing beautiful high-definition footage of a zen garden and of Zelda’s Link, presumably from an upcoming game. It’s not the most original but I do quite like the idea of using a hand-held touch screen to manage an RPG’s map and inventory.

The Controller

Nintendo Wii U Controller And Console

The thing about the Wii U controller is this: we’ve been shown nice concepts like the shuriken demo shown at the 2-minute mark of Nintendo’s reveal video but we’ve already seen this type of human-computer interface across several of the many Nintendo DS iterations. The touch and dual screens have been out since 2004 and I’m still waiting for that mind-blowing implementation to capture me the way Kinect did on day one.

As you could see in the video, the gyroscopic/directional sensor can be a fun way to give you a window into another world. This year’s 3DS does the same thing. I’ll admit, as someone who exclusively plays handheld consoles on the Tube or when sick in bed, I’m far more likely to use any gyroscopic controls in the safety of my living room than on a train. Scaling these up to a big HD screen is no bad thing. However, I have yet to see or hear a killer idea that would make me want to fork out for yet another console, especially if only one gamer will be able to use the tablet controller. Buying a games console to magnify a web page? Please…

Why Buy?

Nintendo tried to sell Wii U in their reveal trailer with the point that if someone wants to use the television, you can carry on playing your game on the small screen. No. Just… no. When I’m playing a game from a HD console on a 40-inch television I want the full, immersive, big screen, surround-sound experience. If I wanted to play arcade-style games on a small screen I’d borrow Nick’s iPad. Transferring to a portable machine would have been a huge advantage 10 years ago when we were all reliant on save points to preserve our progress. Expectations are different these days.

Let me be clear – I think that having a powerful machine capable of HD graphics will be a great advantage in that more companies will be willing to develop for it. More minds, more ideas, more creativity. I am excited to see what concepts better minds than my own will come up with for this, but wary given the similarities to the (3)DS.

Even though prancing around to the jaunty demo music was fun, I just can’t see a reason to start saving the pennies yet. Can you?

Biggest story of the day was obviously the Call of Duty: Elite announcement that you’ve doubtless already seen here on The Average Gamer ;) What you may have missed was the Wall Street Journal publishing it a full 14 hours before the internal online and print embargo that the rest of us were given. Cue this cathartic rant by MCV’s Ben Parfitt:

Of course, if the press really wanted rid of this practice we’d refuse to cover any games or information protected by an NDAs. Perhaps if Activision had told us all that WSJ was getting special treatment a few of us might have torn up the agreement and left the Elite event right there and then.
But who’s going to do that? Gotta get dem clickety-clicks, innit.
– Ben Parfitt, OPINION: Who’s the more foolish?

And because I’m a shameless self-promoter, I shall point out that this is just another ugly side to the gaming press’s dependency on PRs for content that I talked about in my personal blog last week.

That’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? …Who advertises on games websites? Games companies. Who provides the content? Games companies. Everybody knows this.
– Debbie Timmins, Am I Destroying Games Journalism?

In other news:

The Official PlayStation blog announced that the PlayStation Network will be fully functional again by the end of the week. It’s not quite the previously-reported May 31st but it’ll do.

This beautifully strange live-action Portal video has been making the rounds:

RockStar and/or Xbox announced an L.A. Noire Rockstar Pass which gives you all forthcoming LA Noire downloadable content but at half the individual price.

GTA.net have released an amazing map of Liberty City made in Google Streetview.

And finally, Falmouth-based café Loading has created a fabulous Resident-Evil-inspired cocktail.

[hat tips to Joe Barron and Sinan Kubba]

Check out the videos below to see some of the Necromancer’s spells in action. Personally, I love a good minion spell. It’s great seeing them go off to beat the crap out of an enemy whilst you chill out ;-) Are there any other classes people would like to see added to Guild Wars 2?

Doom:

Bone Minions and Putrid Explosion:

Grasping Dead:

Locust Swarm:

Life Siphon:

Google wished Pac-Man a happy 30th birthday with a frickin’ awesome 2-player Pac-Man Google logo

Sadly, my PC wouldn’t capture the audio, but here’s a video of my poor attempt at controlling both Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man myself. Feel free to add blips and wakka-wakka sounds yourself.

Finally… I no longer need to struggle to make my points. Leigh Alexander has teamed up with Daniel Floyd to produce a fantastic 10-minute video that covers everything I’ve been trying to say about women and games for the past two years.

Although I do add the caveat that IMO, Ubisoft’s Imagine series does more harm to equality than good, as the choices offered to girls are Babies, Fluffies (Animal Doctor), Ponies, Fashion and Cooking. Hellooooooo life-limiting sterotypes. I suppose I should just be grateful for Imagine Figure Skating. Daniel did intend the Ubisoft reference to be tongue-in-cheek but it doesn’t come out that way at all.