VidZone on PS3 could put further pressure on free-to-air

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 06 May 2009 16:11

Your IT - Entertainment

A pre E3 2009 event in Sydney has stamped the Sony intention to provide video on demand via a PlayStation 3 service known as VidZone.

At the Sony Pause event in Sydney a new music video on demand service has been announced for Australia.

Long envious of similar services launched overseas for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 – via Netflix, as well as Sony’s own branded movie download service for the PlayStation 3, Australians finally get a chance to stream some game-console based choice content of their own.

The new service, accessible from an icon on the PlayStation 3’s cross-media bar (XMB) will be known as VidZone gives owners of Sony’s flagship media hub the ability to choose from thousands if music videos..

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia expects to have service launched in conjunction with one of the world’s biggest media game events E3 June 2 – 4 in Los Angeles.

VidZone will allow searching by artist, track, album or genre along with the ability to save playlists which can also be set using the PlayStation Portable hand-held game unit.

Sony expects to have region-specific content of up to 10,000 videos soon after the VidZone launch, and hinted at music videos being only the tip of the ice-burg for Australians starved of this kind of service.

Income will seemingly be derived by advertisements placed within the browser selection window.

According to comments made to The Age newspaper today , SCEA head Michael Ephraim indicated that the local team is working hard on bringing a full video on demand service down-under within a year.

The service would stream both TV and cinematic releases produced both under the Sony’s own sources and affiliated networks and movie studios.

"We're looking at [launching] some time towards the end of this year or into 2010," Ephraim said.

Microsoft, whilst not on record, have also hinted at a video streaming service to the Xbox 360 game console, similar to the Netflix offering in the U.S. is also being looked at for the Australian market.

Add these services to the relatively recently arrived TiVo, the Foxtel current offerings as well as Apple TV and others and Australian household entertainment is ready to flood the proposed National Broadband Network with user selected content, putting further pressure on the perceived value of traditional free-to-air programming and advertising models.

Something that Australian networks are yet to face.