A few months ago I was asked by a very senior executive at Foxtel as to what I thought about Foxtel content appearing on Sony devices like the PSP or the Playstations 2 and 3. At the time I thought the question was odd. Now it emerges that Sony management has been talking to Foxtel about their new online portal that is set to launch later this year or early in 2009.
A few months ago I was asked by a very senior executive at Foxtel as to what I thought about Foxtel content appearing on Sony devices like the PSP or the Playstations 2 and 3. At the time I thought the question was odd. Now it emerges that Sony management has been talking to Foxtel about their new online portal that is set to launch later this year or early in 2009.
There has also been talk of Foxtel content being streamed to Sony devices.
In the UK according to the Times newspaper Sony has launched a joint venture with Sky which is also part owned by News Ltd called Go! View.
It enables subscribers to download TV shows onto Sony’s handheld games console. You don’t need to subscribe to Sky’s satellite-TV service, but Go!View does charge per month or per episode.
The Sunday Times which is also owned by News Ltd which has a 33% shareholding in Foxtel claims that once a user has signed up, you can select the viewing material you want and transfer it to your PSP via your computer.
The cost is around $3.80 per program or a monthly subscription fee of $38 per month
The subscription fee grants unlimited access to most of Go!View’s material apart from the films, which cost about $10 each for up to a week’s rental before the files lock you out.
The key attraction is that gamers who already own a PSP don’t need to devote pocket space to an additional viewing gadget, although they will need to buy a bigger memory card.
The Sunday Times say that this is part of a bold move by Sony to reposition both its current PlayStation consoles (the PSP and PS3) as TV-oriented devices rather than purely gaming gadgets.
This week Sony Computers Australia will start selling an 80GB Playstation 3 for $699. It is also expected that they will launch add-on for the PS3 called PlayTV which transforms the console into a Freeview TV recorder.
For more on this story go to Sunday Times
