Netflix engineers get House of Cards running on a NES

Netflix running on a NES? It feels like we've gone Back to the Future.

@anthony256

Published Mar 10, 2015 11:14 PM CDT
Updated Nov 3, 2020 12:09 PM CST

26 seconds read time

Netflix may have filmed the third season of House of Cards in 6K, but why do you need that huge resolution when you're hacking the video service to run on a NES? Yes, a Nintendo Entertainment System.

A trio of Netflix engineers has a semi-working version of Netflix working on the NES, something they hacked together for Netflix's recent winter hack day. The team managed to throw up some frames from the House of Cards intro, all on a "unmodified" NES, with "some assembly required". Not only that, but they managed to get a limited browsing interface, with the feed showing some of Netflix's upcoming original shows.

Netflix engineers get House of Cards running on a NES | TweakTown.com

NEWS SOURCE:polygon.com

Anthony Garreffa

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.