With Microsoft and Sony having a battle of technology this generation, movie rental giant Netflix has taken Nintendo’s side with concerns to the non-importance of HD in streaming movies. Steve Swasey, vice president of corporate communications at Netflix, downplayed the effect of streaming movies in HD during a recent interview with The Wiire in a move to sway Wii owners to give their service a try despite hardware limitations.

“The HD experience at Netflix Instant Watching isn’t that overwhelming. It’s a little bit underwhelming, so the Wii folks aren’t going to miss that much,” Swasey said. “PS3 and Xbox users have 1 in 17 titles available in HD, and it’s streamed in 720… it’s not in 1080, and it’s not in 5.1 surround sound or anything.”

While it may seem odd to hear a company downplay their services for other platforms, the sheer number of Wii owners is an attractive sales audience.

“26 million homes in America have a Wii. That’s a whole lot of folks,” Swasey added. “We think that the desirability of watching movies instantly on the Wii via Netflix is a wonderful opportunity for Wii homes. And so we think it’s going to be very well adopted.”

Netflix will be available for the Wii sometime this Spring and will require a disc similar to the PS3 service.