You’ll be able to download hundreds of films to your PS3 and your PSP from Thursday morning as Sony’s movie service finally arrives in Australia.
Sony today revealed that the PlayStation Network Video Store will go live in Australia from 1am Thursday, May 20. That’s 1am Sydney time.
Through the Video Store you can rent or purchase from a library of 600 movies in both standard and high definition. Sony promises that 50 new movies will be added to the store each month. They also claim support from “all” the major movie studios and distributors, including 20th Century Fox, ContentFilm, MGM, Paramount, Disney, Universal, Roadshow, Warner and of course Sony Pictures.
The Video Store will be accessible via PlayStation 3 (pictured above) and PlayStation Portable (pictured below). You will be able to transfer movies downloaded on your PS3 to your PSP, providing you’re signed in with the same PSN account.
Movie purchases cost from $7.99, meaning some titles are likely to carry a higher price tag. No specific pricing is available at this stage, but we assume that eight bucks gets you the SD version while the HD will be more.
Rentals cost from $3.99, and again we assume that’s just for the SD version. You have 14 days to download and watch the content. Once you’ve hit play, you have 48 hours to watch the movie in full.
Unsurprisingly, those price points are equivalent to what you’ll find on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
UPDATE: Some more information on pricing has come to light via the Screen Play blog, where Jason Hill reports: “New releases such as Avatar and 2012 are currently priced at $24.99 to buy. To rent, 2012 is $5.99 for the standard definition version (576p) or $6.99 for the high definition (720p) version.”
What’s different is that while Microsoft talks of its service as, first and foremost, a movie streaming service, Sony is positioning its store as for movie downloads.
Microsoft would grudgingly admit that, yes, you’re welcome to download and watch later, but the key was always how you could stream and be watching (almost) instantly, assuming your bandwidth was up to the task.
Sony focuses on downloading while briefly mentioning its service’s “progressive downloading capabilities” that will allow you to commence viewing “shortly after” the download process begins.
Of course, until the thing goes live, it’s all talk. We’ll test out Sony’s service on Thursday and let you know how it performs.
Until then, how keen are you to download and/or stream movies on your PS3?
Geoff
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 11:41 AMI’d be interested – but unfortunately it’s about the metering for me.. if iinet offers it quota-free, will definitely be more interesting. but not if i have to pay for the movie AND pay for the download.
Aliasalpha
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 11:47 AMI’ll certainly give it a go depending on the price and availability of stuff I actually want. The PS3′s hard drive gives it a clear advantage here though, far easier to think about buying a film to store on a 250gb drive than it is to think about buying it to store on a 60gb
Cameron
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 11:47 AMSo how big (in GB) will the movies be, will they be metered, and will they download quicker then the horrible slow ps3 updates?
David Wildgoose
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 11:51 AMMovies will vary in size, but Sony says the average will be around 8GB. They have not announced any unmetered deals.
Adam Grabda
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 11:59 AM8GB! Most 720p XviD Blu-Ray rips average around 4GB. The quality better be worth the extra bandwidth.
If that’s the average and there and no unmetered plans from any of the bigger ISPs, I see this failing big time.
Stone
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:06 PM8Gb … fail.org!
Seriously do they not understand how broadband works in this country? Even less technical savvy users than I must think that is a big-fat-elephant-in-the-room-not-funny joke!
Cameron
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:35 PMWoah.
I think I’ll just go down the street and rent my movies on disk thank you. At least then I can get more then 10 per month (not to mention the download allowance I use currently!).
D
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:37 PMYeah the PSN video store is pretty much useless without any unmetered deals and files that size. I could see people blowing through their caps very quickly.
I think I stick with my Blu-Rays.
Gavin Peterson
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:42 PMThat would add another $30 or so to the cost of the movie under the Bigpond plan I have. Never again will I build a home in a ‘Telsta Community’ which doesn’t allow any other ISP.
Nick Broughall
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 4:12 PMJust to clarify David’s comment, each HD download will be about 8GB. Standard Definition will run about 2GB…
Adrian Verna
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 4:51 PMI don’t want to spend four fifths of my download limit on a movie.
No thanks, Sony.
Flame
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:00 PMThat’s great news. I thought we’d never get this in Aus. I like having more options available, just need to be careful what you can actually do with purchases (I hate losing control on things I buy e.g. ITunes video I can’t copy to my PS3 and watch it).
Gobbo
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:12 PMShame it took 20 years of waiting as compared to the US…
D
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:32 PMNo, it didn’t, stop exaggerating. Idiot.
dzc12
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:08 PMWow… Just… Wow…
G4me Lov3r
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:15 PMWow, that came out of nowhere lol.
But yea, it’s been a while since it came out on US/UK, so kinda forgot about it.
I might wait until I hear/read review before I decided to get one, coz I don’t like materials that get stuck on your PS3 and can’t be transferred anywhere else… Say for example if my PS3 dies, I want to be able to download it on different PS3
Michael Barnes
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:27 PMIf I watch about 6 movies thats my months bandwidth gone. WOW go aussie, right?
RogerTheIncredible
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:29 PM8gb doesn’t bother me. I don’t watch movies all that often but if something that I really like becomes available I’ll be looking to download it via PSN now.
Stone
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:17 PM8Gb over PSN doesn’t equal ‘now’ more likely ‘N.O.W*’
*[N]ext [O]l’[W]eek
RogerTheIncredible
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:41 PMDownload speed is certainly a big concern. To be honest I’d probably just download SD content as rental. If I’m going to purchase a movie it’ll be on Bluray.
Heath
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:44 PMI’m glad someones finally offering this service in Australia, I’m also glad it’s on the console I own. My concerns are about the metering of this and the available storage in my PS3′s HDD. Is there any information regarding if the purchased movies could be stored on an external HDD? I have a 60GB HDD in my PS3…was thinking about upgrading it, but don’t have the money for that at the moment, I do however have 2.5TB of external HDD to use.
Denaz
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:47 PMOne question, if we purchase a movie, will we be able to keep it? or will it be like Zune where its only a ‘rental’?
Quite keen for this actually, looks a lot better then Zune. Not that i’d really use either, as i prefer the disc :P
David Wildgoose
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:00 PMIf you purchase, it’s yours to keep.
MattC
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:51 PMWhile I normally would get excited about this, I can’t understand why I wouldn’t walk to the video store up the road and rent 4 movies for the price of one PSN video.
Although, perhaps, the range of movies would be greater on PSN, but things like that remain to be seen- I doubt the range could compare to that of the US store.
Oh, and 8 gig per movie on my internet plan is balls. I get unlimited off-peak, but even if I download off peak it’ll still take me 2 days for one movie. Doesn’t exactly compare with walking 3 minutes to the video store.
But enough complaining, WE LOVE YOU SONY! Fashionably late as always!
Peter Richards
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:17 PMWell…
1. Some of us can’t walk
2. Some of us don’t have a local video store
3. When we get to the closest store it is sometimes out of the movie we want.
I’m hoping this will go well, most ISPs recently upgraded their plans so grabbing a couple of movies a month is probably fine for anyone not on Telstra. Hopefully this will help drive ISP caps higher. Nice thing with the PS3 is you can put any hard drive in there or have an external, and these days hard drives are c-h-e-a-p.
Unfortunately on my 360 unless you jtag it you are stuck buying microsoft’s undersized and massively overpriced HDDs
MattC
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 2:10 PMI was talking about my specific situation, by the way. I can walk, I have a local video store. Their range isn’t great, but it’s there and it’s cheap. No sense in me paying extra money and time just for Sony, is all I’m saying.
Qoutheraven
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:08 PMSo while its downloading you can still use other PS3 functionality like play a game… and not have the download pause?
nick
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 5:04 PMYep. It’s the same as the Games Store, so will download in background. It will also resume if you turn off your console or do something else silly to stop it.
Matthew Buckner
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:27 PMSounds like a lot of you need to churn to a better ISP. I’m with TPG and for $49.95/month I get 130gb (70gb peak, 60gb off peak). I’ve never even gone close to going over the limit. And even if you do mange to go over the limit you get “shaped” to 1mbit which is still a reasonable speed.
I am looking forward to this download service. It sounds like there will be a lot more movies than Zune. Zune doesn’t seem to have a very big back catalogue and the way you browse for movies is horrible imo.
Heath
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 2:16 PMI have the same plan, however I get warnings every month that I’m approaching my limit, adding even one 8gb movie to that will probably get me throttled(by TPG and my wife!). Although the shaping speed is good (at 1mb up/down) it doesn’t compare to my consistant 11mb speed that I get normally.
David Smith
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 5:25 PMYou guys should go to the TPG site and upgrade your plan – they don’t charge extra unless you are paying less than previously. And $50 a month is now good for 180gb (90 on-peak, 90 off-peak).
You have to keep an eye on them.
url404
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:36 PMLook, this could be a great service, Sony has both the capability and infrastructure to be able to serve up content from it’s wide variety of it’s pictures division.
But I pay roughly $60 for 60 GB so at the cheapest price I would be doubling the cost of the purchase.
Until then “other means” of getting movies will be more desirable. The only way that I could see myself purchasing content is if Sony can offer up older or more niche films that are not readily accessible elsewhere (or sort out some metering deals).
Peter Richards
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 11:12 AMWell, Mubi is coming, so that should satisfy that need nicely.
Grim
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 1:53 PMDefinitely needs a peering agreement with iiNet, Internode and the other media-friendly ISPs. They also better display the content size before purchase, unlike the PSN games =P
But at $4+ a rental? Unless it’s ‘new release’ I’ll more than likely just go to the video store thanks – weeklies at $1 each there.
$8 purchase is tempting but can I watch them anywhere other than my PS3 and (non-existent) PSP? No? Well that’s not so useful. I like the option of taking DVDs to a friend’s house or ripping them to my iPhone to watch on the train.
Paul Down
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 2:01 PMYou can now also watch ur psn video purchases on ur pc using Media Go, so this comes as great timing.
oggob
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 2:37 PMhehehehehe… excellent, everything is going to plan! :D
Richard
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 2:38 PMFinally I know what I’ll be using that shiny new $60 75GB/75GB plan I’ve got thru OptusNet cable. I was worried I’d never come close to using half of it :-)
Craig
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 2:58 PMI’d definitely be interested in HD rentals. I have 120Gb of peerage allowance that goes unused each month. As long as the PSN continues to route through WAIX, I’m happy!
Qumulys
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 3:13 PMWow, I’m in two minds here, I dont know if this is good or bad? Sure its a great service to offer and all, but with broadband the way it is here will it be successful?? I hope it sticks around long enough until this Conroy rollout is finished…(2032?)
Andrew Burdusel
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 3:40 PMSome providers are getting smarter and offering unlimited data for a reasonable price now. My only problem with this is that the poor suckers like me that have a 40 gig PS3 really won’t have any space left to download. I find myself constantly deleting old game data to make way for the new ones, but 8 gigs for one movie is just out of the question, plus Foxtel download actually lets me download a lot of movies for free. I’ll stick to the old method of actually buying the physical disc.
Peter Richards
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 11:14 AMMsy have a 320GB drive you could drop into your PS3 for $65, so stop the suffering and upgrade already!
http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf
Paul
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 3:28 PMOnce a long time ago I used to be really interested in this sort of thing and was pretty pissed off about how US got all this and sony, microsoft hulu strung us along.
But it taken so long to get here the alternatives are so easy and so unrestricted and my continued fight against DRM is just annoying
And as much as people claim that blu-ray is an interim technology before we download everything. I can’t see this happening where i can download 50 odd GB. So when they say HD it’s never going to be as good
Adam Grabda
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 4:01 PM$25 for Avatar, its cheaper to buy the physical disc! It would be a hell of a lot faster to get and have no quality loss.
Secondly, charging an extra dollar for HD is bullshit. One rental cost should cover whatever format you wish to download it in, be it HD or otherwise. Possibly having three options, HD (720p), Standard (576p) or Portable (PSP-scaled format).
Daniel
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 6:26 PMIt’s not worth it in Australia as much as other countries. We don’t have the bandwidth limits on our ISP’s like they do in America.
Aliasalpha
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 7:11 PM25 bucks for avatar? It seems like you can get it for 10 bucks if you buy gum at a supermarket, every shop I’ve been in lately has had a ‘spend X and get avatar cheap’ special
Matt
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 12:19 AMwould go nicely with unmetered downloads with TPG or such and faster speeds