Today the European PlayStation Store updated to include over 2000 movies across the UK, France, Germany and Spain, among the list of top films came blockbuster titles such as Star Trek, Bruno, Wolverine and Crank 2. The service provides movies to rent (from €1.99) or to buy (from €7.99), with many in both High Definition and Standard Definition. The store already has the backing of all the major movie studios, including 20th Century Fox, MGM, Sony Pictures, Universal, and Warner Bros as well as local content from publishers such as ContentFilm International, E1 Entertainment UK and Optimum Releasing.
For a service that has only just launched, the library is truly incredible and surprisingly broad, offering a far larger selection than the majority of digital film content providers. The number of films available is set to grow exponentially, with SCEE‘s President and CEO, Andrew House, telling GI that he expects “about an additional 50 movies per week” to arrive on the store. The US Video store grew 700% from its launch one year and three months ago, a promising trend which House intends to emulate.
Price wise the store is fairly cheap, but could do with more competitive prices in some cases, for example Star Trek costs £11.99 on the UK PSN store, compared to £10.99 on iTunes. The rental service is equally leniant, allowing a whole 14 days to watch the movie (with 48hrs given after the movie is watched).
One of the advantages of the PSN video store over other legal digital distribution channels is how the content can be shared with the PSP, allowing both remote play or physical transfer, meaning that you can watch the movie on the go, wherever you are, or the films can, of course, be watched at home on the PS3.
Another advantage for the service is the fact that all videos are progressively downloaded, meaning that if you have downloaded half the movie you can watch half the movie. If your internet is good enough you can instantly stream movies to your TV, but generally a wait of around 30 minutes will give sufficient time to start watching the film.
The European PlayStation Store is by no means perfect, it still needs to roll out across most of Europe, the DRM is too restrictive, and SCEE hasn’t even begun adding TV shows, but considering that this is only the first day of the new service, and that Sony is already working hard to bring updates and new content to the PSN, the future is bright for the store.
What do you think of the Video Store? Tell us in the comments below.
