In an effort to make one console appeal to gamers more than the competition, console makers like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are adding new features. With the global economy down the console makers are also adding features to make gaming systems perform tasks outside of gaming to broaden their appeal.

One such feature was the addition of Netflix streaming capability to the Xbox 360. The Netflix application was made available for Netflix and Xbox Live Gold customers in November of 2008. In the roughly three months since the Netflix application was made available Microsoft says that over a million Xbox 360 owners have installed and activated the Netflix application.

So far, Microsoft reports that 1.5 billion minutes of streaming video has been watched on the Xbox 360 from Netflix. Right now, Netflix offers a library of 12,000 movies and TV shows that can be streamed instantly over the Xbox 360. Netflix says that a growing proportion of those programs are in HD resolution.

Microsoft