PS3 goes PVR
PS3 will be getting PVR functions in mid 2008 according to SECA, Sony’s entertainment branch, with the ability to live steam that info to your PSP as part of a “battle over the living room” between Microsoft Xbox 360 and the PS3. In the mean time we just want to point out that Wii is selling better than everyone else.
While the PVR functions and stream to your PSP will be cool, it is in head-to-head competition with Microsoft on this one. Microsoft Xbox Live already allows movies to be downloaded to your Xbox 360 and watched, with the elite version you can even do HD-TV along the way.
For once this looks like Sony is working on playing catch up with Xbox.
LiveTV consists of a TV tuner and personal video recorder (PVR) for the PS3, which allow console owners to watch, pause and record live TV. During the live demonstration from Sony’s booth at GC, Reeves and Mark Bunting (from Sony’s Worldwide Studios) showed the console’s new capabilities, adding that “you can watch any free-to-air channels available in Europe.” PlayTV will also record individual programmes or whole series to the PS3 hard drive for viewing later on the family TV, or for transferring to the PSP for remote viewing outside of the home. One interesting feature exhibited during the conference was the possibility to preview the recorded channels through thumbs, which, when highlighted, offered a 15 seconds “trailer” of what was registered on the PS3’s hard drive. Source: EFluxMedia
While interesting, we still have to wait nearly a year before we will see it, the PS3 gamers network still needs some work, and there are no casual games on the PS3 gamers network like there is on Xbox Live. The ability to stream to the PSP is pretty cool, Sony is in a major competition space with this one.
They compete against Tivo, local cable companies, satellite companies, the good old PC, apple TV, and a host of other PVR systems, this is a crowded market. There are so many devices out there right now that perform most of the same functionality that this might not be a sales point for the PS3, if anything it might distract from the idea of playing games on the box, and game sales are needed to offset the losses that they are taking on each console sale.
Add to that the full scale revolt against Blu-Ray, makes the decision to provide this kind of service dubious at best, and of limited interest to everyone on the market at the same time. They have to do something to increase sales; this might not be the way to do it.
The simple elegance of the PS2, it played games, had rumble features, and a huge number of games to go along with it is exactly what the Nintendo Wii has done. Simple works, complex and complicated seems to not sell. Have to see how this one goes.
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