Sony just announced at E3 that Playstation Network users now have the ability to rent and purchase moves and TV shows. Like, immediately -- the service is getting flipped on tonight. It's not just Sony content, either: Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Turner, and something called Funimation are signed up from the get-go. Video will be available in both SD and HD, and TV pricing starts at $1.99. Movie purchases will run $9.99 - $14.99, while rentals will be $2.99 - $5.99. What's more, the content is "portable," meaning that videos downloaded on your PS3 can be watched on multiple PSPs. It doesn't look like movies can be purchased in HD, but downloads are progressive so content starts playing a minute after you hit begin the download.

PSN users will also get a single persistent sign-on across every device that can access the network: PS3, PSP, PC. It's not clear whether those aliases will carry over into games themselves or if friends lists will start working across devices as well, however. The integration is scheduled to happen for this fall, though, so you might want to go and grab your handle of choice relatively soon.

Sony just released a rambling update to it corporate strategy through fiscal year 2010. An interesting read for fans and competitors alike as Sony lays bare initiatives intent on moving Sony from recovery to the "leading global provider of networked consumer electronics and entertainment." Most notable in the near-term however, is word from Kazuo Hirai, chieftain of Sony Computer Entertainment, that Sony will make a movie download service available to US PlayStation 3 owners this summer -- Japan and Europe at later dates with details coming "next month," presumably at E3. Moreover, Sony expects its gaming business to achieve profitability by March 2009, the end of the current fiscal year. Of course, we already knew that Sony was prepped to deliver full-length TV shows and movies sometime in 2008 via its North American PLAYSTATION Network. But summer, eh? Judging by the increased molecular agitation of sidewalk effluence, we'd say that Sony's season of movie downloads is already upon us.

Read -- 2010 plan
Read -- US summer launch

It doesn't seem like those Sony firmware engineers will be a getting a break any time soon. With the PlayStation 3's v2.30 firmware and its DTS-HD MA / PS store upgrades barely settled Sony Senior VP Peter Dille jumped on the official PlayStation blog to let us know what the rest of 2008 has in store. In-game XMB? On the way this year, along with a video service that "separates the service from others you've seen or used...to give you the TV, movies and gaming content you want," and expanded community features. Also in store are PlayStation Cards (in $20 and $50 denominations) for the credit card-less among us. The four pillars of Sony's plan (community, free online gaming, digital media download services, and original content) hint towards the reasons we won't let the shiny beast get quite as dusty this year.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

This is just the faintest whiff of a rumor, but Sony Asia just put up a questionnaire in which it asks how interested PlayStation Store for PC customers would be in a "Monthly subscription plan (1 price for unlimited download)." That suggests that the company is at least thinking about a service that would let gamers play as many downloadable PS1 and PSP games as they want for a monthly fee -- although it's not at all clear if the service would be PSP-only or work on both the PSP and PS3, which would sweeten the deal considerably. Chalk this up as wishful thinking for now -- but those of you with PSN IDs may want to hit the read link and fill out the questionnaire.

[Via CVG, thanks L. Rawlins]

Now that PSP owners in the US can finally access the Playstation store without a PS3, it looks like Sony's getting ready to take the next logical step and cut the computer out of the equation as well. Speaking to MTV's Multiplayer blog, Playstation Network operations chief Eric Lempel said PSP downloads were "Something we're thinking about. With the capability of the PSP it's something that should be possible...it's just a matter of priorities and some technology that we need to make it all work right and make sure the content is delivered securely, just to protect some of our [intellectual properties]." Lempel went on to say that Sony is also working on an iTunes-like syncing functionality for the PSP, and that Mac support will be forthcoming. All in all, it seems like interesting times are ahead for Sony's newly-revived little gamer.

[Via The Boy Genius Report]

Those rumors of Connect's demise were apparently greatly exaggerated -- Sony today confirmed that while the company is in fact trimming some 20 jobs at the fledging download service, it intends to keep the servers running. The company is still planning on shifting resources and attention to the Playstation Network, however, so we'll see how long this stay of execution lasts for Connect -- Sony Reader downloads alone aren't going to keep it alive, after all.

PlayStation Network users, were you lucky enough to get in on the PlayStation Home Beta test invite yet? Apparently not everyone who applies will be accepted (shocker, right?), but it's good to know at least there's some movement in PS3rd Life Home process. Let us know if you get an invite, and definitely let us know if you get accepted.

P.S. -Sorry, we don't have a link to share at this time, the invites seem to be per-user.

[Thanks, Dustin]

We were never ones to stand in the way of excessive format support, and never ones to accuse Sony of such a deed, but it appears they're feeling generous this week, with the brand new range of 720 x 480, 352 x 480 and 480 x 272 playback resolutions of MPEG-4 AVA (H.264) video that can be yours with the new 3.30 firmware update. The update also improves PSone performance with a menu option to increase disk dreading speed in exchange for better load times and a little bit of instability. Finally, Sony is tossing in thumbnail support for video and RSS feeds, another welcome improvement. Not bad at all for a 0.1 update, but we're still holding out for PS3-free PSone downloads.

Hot on the heels of the big 3.0 firmware update for the PlayStation Portable, Sony's finally let loose its pricing plans for the forthcoming PS1 game downloads, although the downloads themselves are still apparently a few weeks away (unless you're in Japan, in which case you can get your Tekken 2 fix today). When they do show up, however, you can plan on dropping between $5.99 and $10.99 for the games, with each taking up between 140MB and 550MB on your Memory Stick Duo. The biggest sticking point for many PSP users, however, is that, as previously reported, you can't just download the games directly to your PSP -- instead, you have to download them onto your PS3's hard drive first and transfer 'em to your Memory Stick Duo from there. No problem for some but, last we checked, there's a heckuva lot more people with PSPs than PS3s, and at the rate things are going, that looks like it'll be the case for a while yet.

You might've hoped that after years of PS3 strife -- coupled with a couple of weeks in line, of course -- that once you'd forked over your $600 + games + accessories + HDMI, you could finally plop down on the couch and start washing away all the grief with MotoStorm / Genji / Ridge Racer / Resistance, smug in your next-gen digs. Well, you can... after you run a quick firmware update. See, Sony saved its PlayStation Network online service functionality for a version 1.1 update, which can be accessed from a menu item on the PS3 on launch day. Sony says it's also prepping a 3.0 PSP update for late November that will also add PlayStation Network support, along with the ability to access PS3 content via WiFi.

It's not really fair to judge the PS3's online component before, like, the console is actually released and gamers start putting it through its paces, but it's still interesting hear Eurogamer's take on a pre-launch version of the PlayStation Network, courtesy of some exclusive face time with Sony exec Phil Harrison. From the site's extensive coverage of many aspects of the service, the most noticeable theme is that Sony seems to have been closely watching the successes and failures of Xbox Live, and is serious about its promise to meet or exceed all of Live's capabilities. Therefore, many of features that 360 fans have become accustomed to -- consistent UI, multiple methods of communicating with friends, and downloadable content -- are prominently featured in the Network experience, with other aspects -- namely a full web browser, multitude of game-specific mini-stores, and pricing in real currency as opposed to "points" -- clearly designed to one-up Microsoft's offering. Other nice touches here include the ability to create a master account and regulated "associated" accounts (helpful for parents looking to police their kids' usage), a global "Wallet" with which you make all micro-payments (including those required by third-party publishers), and of course, an upgradable OS that leverages the hard drive on both versions of the PS3. Downsides? Unlike Xbox Live, the first iteration of PlayStation Network doesn't let friends communicate while playing a game; even though you'll get a notification of new messages during gameplay, you have to exit the game in order to read them and respond. Also, it's still not clear if / how Sony will implement player rankings a la Live's leaderboards, which is a feature that naturally-competitive gamers have come to expect. All-in-all, though, it sounds like Sony has put a lot of thought into the usability of this increasingly important aspect of the console experience, and assuming that the company is able to overcome potential shortages, lack of rumble, and other well-known nitpicks, the PlayStation Network looks poised to attract the same fervent following as XBL.

[Via PS3 Fanboy and Joystiq]