Microsoft, as the maker of the Xbox 360, and Netflix, one of the biggest providers of video on demand on a variety of platforms, are announcing that the Netflix Xbox Live application, which allows those who bought the console to watch movies streamed directly to the gaming device, has been downloaded, installed and activated by more than 1 million of those subscribing to the Gold variety of Xbox Live. It's not known how many shows or movies have been streamed through the service.

Users of the service need to pay first off the Xbox Live membership, about 7.99 dollars for one month and then for the Netflix Unlimited subscription. Once they do this, they have access to standard and 720p resolution variants of more than 12,000 shows ands movies. A future version of the service is also set to allow parties of Xbox 360 users to watch the same content while also chatting and exchanging content. Netflix says that its console application has been used to watch more than 1.5 billion minutes of video.

John Schappert, who is the corporate vice president of the Live, Software and Services Business division at Microsoft, commented that “Adding Netflix to our ever-growing library of 30,000 movies and TV shows makes Xbox 360 the best value in home entertainment.”

The Microsoft-Netflix partnership is a rather young one. The Netflix application was implemented as part of the New Xbox Experience, a major update to the interface of the console that arrived in November 2008. The re-design also introduced Avatars and a new way of getting information on videogames offered for the gaming device.

Microsoft said that the NXE was needed because the console it produces is now appealing to a wider array of customers, some of whom are more interested in the multimedia capabilities the Xbox 360 uses, rather than in playing hardcore videogames on it.