Nintendo announced on Wednesday that it will add the Netflix movie-streaming service to its popular Wii gaming console, by spring this year – a move that emulates the already-in-place moves by Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo’s arch-rivals in the game console market.

Microsoft and Sony added the movie-streaming service to their consoles, Xbox and PlayStation 3, in November 2008 and November 2009 respectively. And, this spring onwards, the Netflix service will become available for the US’ Wii console owners at no additional cost, provided that they have subscribed to Netflix’s monthly plan starting $8.99, and have a broadband Internet connection.

As such, the Netflix movie-streaming service will essentially be ‘free’ to the over 11 million people who already have a subscription for Netflix’s movie rental service; as is the case with both Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PS3.

However, like the PS3 users, the Wii users will also require a special streaming-media disc that they will receive for free from Netflix. The insertion of the disc will pop up a Netflix menu for the users, allowing them to take a pick from the available content.

But, since the immensely popular gesture-based Nintendo Wii console cannot play Blu-ray discs or even regular DVDs the way its rivals do, due to its limited display capabilities, the Netfix service on Wii will not be just the same as the high-definition content quality offered by both Xbox and PS3.