Quickflix to stream movies to Sony PS3

Stuart Corner
Friday, 21 October 2011 10:20

Your IT - Entertainment

Online movie rental company Quickflix (ASX: QFX) is to stream movies to PlayStation3 starting later this year under an agreement with Sony.

The move follows an agreement struck in July under which Quickflix is streaming movies to Sony's Bravia Internet enabled TVs. The service will provide unlimited viewing of movies from a constantly changing catalogue drawn from what is claimed to be Australia's largest movie and TV series library of more than 50,000 titles.

Quickflix CEO, Chris Taylor, said: "Over 1.3 million Australian consumers who own an Internet connectable PlayStation 3 will have access to Quickflix's on demand movie streaming service."

According to Quickflix, globally, the PS3 is the game console platform most often used in the home to stream movies to TVs. "In the US1 and UK, PlayStation 3 is estimated to account for over 30 percent of movie streaming by the leading online movie subscription providers in those countries," the company said.

The Quickflix via PS3 service will use the PS3 Xross media bar (XMB) (the PS3's graphical user interface) to enable viewers to watch movies instantly. The console also features a DVD Blu-ray player, 3D playback capability and two existing on demand services: PlayStation Network Video Delivery Service (PSN VDS) and MUBI.

MUBI is a VOD company has a library of more than 4,500 features and short films, including works by directors such as Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, David Fincher and Stanley Kubrick. The MUBI service became available on the PS3 in November 2010 and on the Bravia in September 2011.

QFX boosted its physical DVD rental business in July with the addition of the former Telstra BigPond Movies libraries. The company claims to have over 80,000 subscribers for physical DVD rentals. Two months ago the company appointed former Telstra executive Justin Milne a deputy chairman and non-executive director and Taylor, also ex Telstra as its CEO.