Sony PS3 movie downloads are go

Sony has finally broken its silence over the long awaited PlayStation 3 video downloads service and launched it onto the PlayStation Network. The electronics giant has partnered with numerous content providers for the service, including Fox, MGM, Lionsgate, Warner, Disney and Paramount. Available content - in the US only, alas …

[Anonymous Coward]

"Kick in the knickers?"

It's not a kick in the knickers for MS - since the Sony service is only playing catch-up with what has been available on XBL for a long while now.

So what you have is, Sony implements something to catch up to MS, and in the fall MS jumps ahead again with the rental store PLUS netflix.

[James Pickett (Jp)]

If . . .

. . . they undercut Xbox Live's expensive service, I'll use this for an occasional rental. Liking the copy to PSP option as I'm too lazy to rip stuff myself these days!

[Anonymous Coward]

Limited use - shame

Isn't it a shame that Sony still haven't figured out how to do playlists of videos to watch things back to back? The one thing I really, really want to complete my requirements

[Mark]

Xbox - Goodbye

Why pay a subscription charge for downloading movies and playing games? Your days are numberered cretins!!

Ahaahahahaaaaaa

I'm feeling warm feelings about downloading movies when they come out in the UK

[K]

umm.. no

I think M$ wins this one, they'll offer around 10,000 movies.. while Sony will have a whopping 300..

[Matt]

US only - rubbish

Shame its only for the yanks. I nearly canned my dvd rental service then. Hurry up Sony Europe ....

[Anonymous Coward]

re: "Kick in the knickers?"

well it is a kick because Sony users don't have to pay they exhorbitant XBL subscription price on top of the price of these movies. and the Sony movies are the same price aren't they?

[jai]

prices

i wonder why you bother to include the GBP and EUR conversions of the dollar prices for this.

it's not available outside the US - it'll probably take AGES before it is, and we know full well that the prices on this side of the pond will be far greater than your calculate figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice.

Xbox service is XBL Gold (£50 a year), plus Netflix subs.

This is free, with better studio support, already there is decent stuff on there at launch, like Family Guy and Futurama episodes.

So yes, This totally trumped Microsoft's Netflix annoucement. It's hardly suprising, as the PS3 is a far better platform for movie downloads, seeing as every single one has a standard HDD, and PSN access is free. I wonder how many of those 18m 360's actually have HDD AND XBL Gold? At a guess 10m.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Register

Lets publish every Sony story possible...

Why not publish the GTAIV 630P story

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh @ The Register bias again

Two reports on Sony's breifing when they really had nothing to say other than they're finally doing what Microsoft has done for ages and they're releasing an 80gb PS3 in the states.

Did the register apparently miss the massive XBox live overhaul such as the community content and perhaps the most important news at all of E3? That's Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the 360 same day as the PS3, or to put it another way.

Oh and The Register is also usually quite proud of itself when it exposes "lies" in sales figures, at least when we're talking about Microsoft. They're also very quick to point to VGChartz.com as proof of their sales figures. Well, here's one for you The Reg, a quote from the Sony breifing:

"We're well on the way to selling more than 10 million PlayStation 3s"

Yet VGChartz.com shows 13mill sold.

So there it is, whilst VGChartz claims 13mill, straight from the horses mouth Sony admits it hasn't yet even sold 10mill PS3s, it's lost it's greatest hope of all - FFXIII as an exclusive and it's got nothing else new or groundbreaking to show. This E3 has been an unmitigated disaster for Sony and yet The Reg is ignoring all the Sony tragedies whilst hyping up the few scraps of non-news Sony did manage to show off and whilst ignoring the important news from MS and Nintendo which dwarfs the pitiful scraps Sony can provide.

Arguably the only good thing Sony did show was Mag, but even then they tried to hype it as something new and amazing when in reality it's nothing new, Planetside did it over 5 years.

Sony has well and truly lost the battle, they had a miserable start but things were looking promising last year, things were picking up, but it already seems they're exhausted because they simply haven't got anything else other than the few promises from last year which they've still yet to deliver bar the video store.

Nice try Sony, maybe next round you'll stand a chance of coming somewhere other than last place or at least not end up so badly behind in last place as this time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Xbox ?

Look all you microsoft fans xbox is a PC with a plastic case around it calling it Xbox lol PS3 is based on 7 cell processor technology

huff and puff and moan about ps3 but frankly you will be on you r next version of xbox maybave xbox 720 whilst all of us PS3 users will still be on the same console

Look how long PS2 took matched Original Xbox that was released 5 years after ps2.

Xbox pfffft no thanks if i want a pc to game i will use PC !

[broooks]

Muppets with nothing better to do....

Mark, I hate you

[bluesxman]

RE: Limited use - shame

You should download DVD Rips of your grumble flicks, instead of 30 second clips.

Music videos? TV episodes? Don't believe you. ;)

[Joe K]

Not in UK :-(

Bah, you can't even go on with a US PSN account and make it work, seems locked to IP addresses, unline the rest of the store.

Still, seeing as Sony are one of the biggest movie studios in the world, it shouldn't be too hard for them to get the UK store up and running with content.

Unlike MS, which treats Europe like a retarded step-child it'd rather not see or think about and will have to negotiate regional licencing deals itself.

[Secretgeek]

As much as I like my Xbox...

The list of movies it currently has is pretty crap really and I wonder with 300+ movies whether initially PS will be any better though it's studio line up looks strong. Remember there are an AWFUL lot of crappy movies that Hollywood execs are desperate to see any kind of return on even if it's a few thousand people renting it out of curiosity.

I'm interested to see what Netflix will bring to the party though from what I've heard it'll not be much better in the way of quality.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: "well it is a kick"

$50 / year isn't what I'd call "exhorbitant"... especially when it's pretty clear which online service is better.

From the sidelines people may not see/care, but go to any gaming forums for a third-party, multi-platform developer, and watch as they complain about the PS3 lacking basic functionality that the 360's always had - things like friend invites and buddy lists.

As for saying this has "Trumped" MS's announcement? That's silly - what you have is Sony playing catch up, again. MS already has movies, for about the same rental price, now they'll have Netflix as well. Well hey, at least you guys finally have achievements / trophies.

"Look all you microsoft fans xbox is a PC with a plastic case around it calling it Xbox lol PS3 is based on 7 cell processor technology"

Hurrah for 7 cell processor technology - now look at the games. Just about every third party game looks better on Xbox. Metacritic shows almost double the number of games with an 80+ rating on Xbox vs PS3.

If you're really into movies you'd buy a PS3 for the BD and then try and rationalize the shortcomings in the gaming areas... and here we are.

[Alex]

Bias?

I'm not sure 'The Reg' do give a fuck about playing favourites to any particular console. Although, if it would enrage people who live and die over their choice of console, which might hypothetically be an Xbox 360, I'm all for that.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Anonymous Coward - "Sigh @ The Register bias again"

Nobody is forcing you to read the articles published by The Register, it is still a free world, so if you do not like the article why not find another news outlet that caters more to your taste?

Have to say, this constant bickering from console fanboys is annoying.

[William]

Bastards

Why do you keep publishing these Sony stories? You're so biased. Did they offer you a free TV or something. I never hear anything, ANYTHING about my Atari 2600. Just last week 8 of us from accross the country got together to play a defender championship. Where was the register then? Eh? Nowhere to be seen. Probably drinking fancy cups of piss disguised as coffee, paying through the nose for the bastard green logo on the side of the cup, leafing through the Sony catalogue getting to choose their winnigs for glorifying the sons of satan.

You biased bastards. You better come to our pong knockout in Stockholm next month or I will KNOW you are a puppet of the Japanese masters.

[Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware]

@William

Love to - but it clashes with my Dragon 32 Users Group reunion...

[Graham Lockley]

@Tony Smith

Bastard !

I got told you wouldnt be there so I didnt bother doing you a copy of my Flex disk

:)

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Sigh @ The Register bias again

"We're well on the way to selling more than 10 million PlayStation 3s"

Yet VGChartz.com shows 13mill sold."

THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT THIS FISCIAL YEAR, IDIOT.... NOT SALES TO DATE...

No wonder Microsoft managed to sell 18m 360s, there are plenty of morons around...

[Anonymous Coward]

re:re "well it is a kick"

"From the sidelines people may not see/care, but go to any gaming forums for a third-party, multi-platform developer, and watch as they complain about the PS3 lacking basic functionality that the 360's always had - things like friend invites and buddy lists."

Funny, my PS3 does both of these things just fine with the latest firmware...

Are you still stuck in 2006?

[Iain]

Yawn

As patiently explained to the Sony fanboys last week, the 360 has had a "pay per title with no subscription, no not even Gold Live" movie service for over a year. Netflix support is a minor addition to it, whereby 360 users can use the existing free supplement to the main Netflix service for streaming movies via their telly instead of on a PC.

[Anonymous Coward]

Outside Of USA? Not Until 2009

DOH

[Abe]

@ xbox

IF the cell is as good as sony say it is how come everystatment they make is about blu-ray

for example the statement saying the 360 will never get MGS4 because its not good enough as it doesnt have blu-ray

surely if you had the best chip out of all the consoles you would be harping that one not constant blu-ray

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Are you still stuck in 2006?

Like most everything else, firmware isn't the question - Sony left it up to the individual developers to implement almost everything.

So sure, maybe the firmware supports it (just now) but many (most?) games don't support or allow it.

As an example - how many publishers have already come out and said they're not retroactively adding trophy support?

And that's the difference. Basic functionality like this being left to developers to implement rather than having it being provided as part of the framework / ecosystem.