Clever Hack Brings Netflix To Original Nintendo
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Netflix on NES
Netflix

My TV has five devices connected to it that support Netflix (including the TV itself), but it turns out there’s another squirreled away in a drawer in my living room: my original Nintendo Entertainment System, circa 1985.

During Netflix’s recent Hack Day, during which the company invites its employees to invent offbeat projects, a team came up with a way to stream Netflix video on the old 8-bit gaming system.

Though the team demonstrates the system in the video below, scrolling through a catalog listing and even playing the opening of House of Cards, it’s unclear just how functional this hack is. (Even getting an NES online is kind of a challenge, though there was a modem for the console.)

Amazingly enough, the team claims it was able to make the project without modifying the original hardware, and using a cartridge that stores just 256kb of data (that’s a quarter of a megabyte).

Other projects from Netflix Hack Day include a feature that lets you see the caption of a scene when you’re paused, an animated globe showing real-time playback, and a system that requires you and your significant other to both provide PINs when accessing the service, so that you can’t watch your favorite shows without them.

No word on what happens if you enter the Konami Code.