Netflix made an announcement this Sunday that just considerably upped the ante for the ongoing Console War – Instant Streaming, formerly an Xbox 360 exclusive in the home console arena, is going to be coming to PlayStation 3 in November of this year.

And unlike Xbox, where a Gold membership is required on top of the existing Netflix subscription rate, this service will be totally free of charge.

However, PS3 owners will initially require a disc to enable the stream – you can go here to sign up and have one mailed to you for no cost – but that won’t be the case forever. G4′s Patrick Klepek spoke to Netflix VP of Corporate Communications, Steve Swasey, about the issue and Swasey confirmed that an “embedded solution” was coming eventually, though he couldn’t say when. Most are speculating that the disc-based solution circumvents whatever console exclusivity Microsoft currently has on the service.

While this may not be the game-changer Sony would like, it’s definitely another chip taken out of Xbox Live’s armor. How do you all feel about this? Let us know.

[Via: PlayStation Blog, G4]