Brits won't get PS3 movie, TV downloads until 2009

If you’re a European resident itching to download video content through the PlayStation Network, then Sony’s not your PAL – literally. The President of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, David Reeves, has confirmed that the PS3 video store – which was launched in North America earlier this week – won’t be available to …

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony's fault or the studios?

Clearly James would like to blame Sony for this, but the reality is clear for all but the idiots to see.

Sony have managed to get all 8 of the big movie studios onboard for the US launch, and that came at a price, they had to region lock content, and only allow other region access, when allowed to do so by the copyright holder.

Clearly Sony are not to blame for this, it's the studios wanting to keep their regional locks on content. It's worth pointing out that all Sony PS3 and PSP games have no region lock, which is a clear indicator is to what Sony think about regional locking.

[Matthew Davies]

Before the flames get too high...

We had exactly the same thing with the 360 video store.

Paris - as she's all about the videos!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bias!

Bias! Bias! Bias, I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

eh?

Most of these new fandangled TVs have ntsc locked in there anyway, and heck even a £20 dvd player has a converter in it, ---- PAL

[Anonymous Coward]

PAL

I could be wrong, but isn’t the term ‘PAL territories’ a little Archaic seeing that you need an HDMI connection to use a PS3

[Anonymous Coward]

SCEE needs to be dissolved

The worst PSN in the world, awful layout, poor content, months and months out of date.....and now this.

Don't give me that licensing crap, nor language excuses, the reason we ain't getting it is because the PSN team in Europe consists of 1 lonely tech guy, and 20 managers who do nothing but have meetings about meetings.

The regional split of the Sony divisions needs to be reversed, our region isn't pulling its weight at all.

[Mark]

@ anonymous coward.

i think its clear what Sony think of regional locking after they locked Blu Ray movies down.....

[Paul Talbot]

re:Sony's fault or the studios?

Meanwhile, the studios are trying to remove the internet connections of people who are downloading content by other means that have no region restriction. So, as usual, the pirated content is both easier to obtain and more widely available than the real thing.

If only these people could recognise the cause and effect of trying to control their content in this way...

[Adrian Jackson]

Re: Sony's fault or the studios?

Absolutely right. This isn't like all the other kicks in the face from Sony to the UK/Europe market. This time it genuinely is the fault of the studios.

That said, isn't one of the big movie studios involved... Sony?

So we still get to blame them after all.

[Andy Pellew]

RE: Sony's fault of the studios ...

If you check out;

http://bluray.liesinc.net/

Which shows a list of Blu-Ray films that have region encoding you'll notice that 21, All The Kings Men, and Casino Royale (ok, yes, I'm lazy ... I got to "C") all Sony titles are fully region encoded.

Ok, it's a minority of Sony films but they definately are using region encoding for some of them.

I think the water is a lot muddier than you think ...

My coat? It's the one with a witty slogan on the back. Any one will do.

[Ivor]

@AC - Big studios...

er... and isn't Sony one of the "big six"? :)

[Tony Bloke]

HD

Shame, I was quite looking forward to this, and the PAL conversion isn't an issue for me as I'd only be interested in the HD content anyway - or until I see how much they'll charge for this of course.

Oh well, if it's not in place for the next season of BSG, I'll get it elsewhere...

[Darren Coleman]

Can you just use the US store?

Is it possible to just create a US account on the PS3, use this movie store and buy whatever you want to watch using Entropay as you can for the regular US Playstation store content?

[iRoy]

re: Sony's fault or the studios?

Sony's not to blame its the studios and their restrictions.

So blame the studios like Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, Destination Films, Triumph Films, Culver Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Mandalay Entertainment, Phoenix Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, United Artists Corp, United Artists Entertainment LLC, Orion Pictures Corporation, MGM Television. (and the umpteen studios Sony own in Japan and other parts of the world.)

As for Sony and region locking, Blu-Ray has three regions, where as the HD-DVD format they killed off had none.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: @AC - Big studios...

"er... and isn't Sony one of the "big six"? :)"

Yes indeed they are. But can you imagine the grilling Sony would get for launching a Sony-only movie store in Europe, because all the other studios wanted region locking and timed releases?

Hardly suprising Sony are playing cautious, with all the Sony haters with loaded guns...

[Michael Jones]

PlayTV

I can forgive Sony not getting into downloadable movies, as long as they get the PlayTV out this year! That looks a great PS3 add-on!

[Liam Gretton]

Can you just use the US store?

Darren - no you can't just use the US store, the video section is locked through some geo-IP sorcery.

Someone mentioned that PS3 games aren't region locked. The aren't, but DLC is (so you can't use Guitar Hero DLC from the US store if your Guitar Hero was bought in Europe, for example).

[Henry Wertz]

Sony divisions

From what all I've read, I think quite a few Sony divisions do not want copy restrictions, region restrictions, etc.; but, Sony Entertainment does, and (despite making less cash than SCEI I think), seems to have more influence. I had read that the division that made DAT players, asked to be able to make the last DAT model copy-restriction free... since, after all, it was the final DAT product being made. But Sony (probably Sony Entertainment) said "no", so they released the final model, the whole division quit en-masse and went to Google Japan.

Doesn't stop me from not buying anything Sony, the outcome is still making unnecessarily restricted devices, putting spyware on CDs, and so on. But, it does explain why you'll see inconsistencies between the products.

[Shawn]

Not even North America

Actually the video service is only available in the US.

Canada doesn't have it. Not even Peurto Rico got i.

Sony has been really slow on getting their online services ramped up across the world.

[Matt]

downloadable films are all very good, but...

what are they actually like?? having never used the 360 store to download anything and my only contact with downloading a film has been, er.. on the grey side of the line!

a 4gb dvd rip is pretty good, but you would struggle to get a nice HD film and sound track in that amount of data... and knowing how slowly the PS3 downloads as opposed to 'other means' of file aquisition I would expect it would be faster to order the Blueray from Play than to wait for a movie to squeeze its way down to the PS3 :)

[M]

Honestly...

I am so fed up of Europe being deprived like a red-headed step child when it come to things filmy and gamey.

[Liam]

hmmm

yes, any decent dv can handle NTSC these days (and have been able to for YEARS!)

but as someone said movie content isnt worldwide distributable likes games are. lots of movies have different distributers for different regions (hence we had the region locking on DVDs)

for me this isnt a big thing... can we really expect UK broadband to cope with downloading 50gb in 90 mins (average film length and HD file size)...

"I could be wrong, but isn’t the term ‘PAL territories’ a little Archaic seeing that you need an HDMI connection to use a PS3" - bollocks... you can even use composite ffs...

[Mart]

SCEE suck

I've lost count of how many times they've sh*t on us, why can't they release UK service almost instantly I know the US think we all talk like Jeeves but really we are the same language.

This is as stupid as the whole 'UK film premiere 2 months after the US' and the Many Associations of America wonder why people resort to cheating the system

[Monkey]

You're a little wrong iRoy

HD-DVD DID have region locking in the spec, they simply had not implemented it on the disks released up to the time the format was ditched. The HD-DVD consortium chose not to correct people when the were saying "no region coding" as a positive for HD-DVD when the format war started.

[Anonymous Coward]

region locking

the best reason to download. It's like a signed up legitimate reason to pirate. "We're not releasing it in your region till later coz you don't matter"/"We're charging you twice as much in you region coz you suck" becouse we're the law and we can price fix however we damn well please. Well mofo I'm downloading your movie/series/game from some open hearted sob in the States, how do you like them apples?

Of course I'm not, Western music/films/games/series for the most suck hard.

[Anonymous Coward]

God forbid, of course..

That Sony could have asked any UK distributors in enough time that it was ready to launch the store at the same time.

No point blaming the studios for Sony's lack of planning.

[Mark]

re: You're a little wrong iRoy

And here is the funny part. The lack of region coding on HD DVD is what killed it, studios jumped to Blu-ray as it offered region locking AND uncracked protection scheme..

You might think lack of region coding was good, but at the end of the day, it was the formats downfall...

[Steve]

Re: re: @AC - Big studios...

"But can you imagine the grilling Sony would get for launching a Sony-only movie store in Europe, because all the other studios wanted region locking and timed releases?"

A grilling from whom?

If they were offering their own content without region coding no-one could say anything. The moment anyone accused them of it being anti-competitive they'd simply point out that they are more than willing to serve other producers' content on their region-free network.

Then, with the smuggest grin you've ever seen, Sony would say that none of the other producers were willing to compete in the global free market that they had created. They'd paint themselves as trailblazers breaking down the barriers to a truly competitive market and play up all the consumer advantages. It'd be like calling out the entertainment industry.

"What's the matter Viacom, are you chicken? "

[Anonymous Coward]

@Mark

"And here is the funny part. The lack of region coding on HD DVD is what killed it, studios jumped to Blu-ray as it offered region locking AND uncracked protection scheme.."

No it wasn't, it was that Warner went Blu Ray and Toshiba said, oh well thats it then, kill it while we still can. Idiot.

Blu Ray can't be cracked right? http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html

Get your facts straight and your Sony fanboy arse out of here. Think before you speak slughead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a note:

The service wasn't launched in North America - just in the US. We Canucks also won't see the service for some time yet.

[Iain]

@Steve

Sony are just one member of the Blu-ray consortium. As such, they didn't have final say whether to introduce the region coding and BD+ features that Disney and Fox demanded as part of the spec before they would go with the format rather than HD-DVD.

Personally, I'm just buying a US PS3.