Hulu and PSN: Double Plus Power!

in , ,
Yesterday, there was news that the new Hulu Plus service would be available to select PlayStation Network Plus users. This is something that I've wanted on my PS3 for a while now, the ability to play Hulu content on my PS3 since they disabled it to move to the newer version of Flash. Really, this is allowing us access back to what we already had, but this time you have to pay for it. Let's break this down for a second:


The selling factor for a lot of PS3 gamers was the fact that playing online games is free. You can log into a hosted session of Call of Duty 3 and begin to start frag'n noobs with the best of them. Now they are offering their PlayStation Network Plus membership that adds a few new features; discounted prices on game purchases, early access to demos, and some "free" games that you can play as long as you're a PSN Plus member. To pick up this service you need to pay approximately $50/year to use these features. Alright, not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, Personally, I'm going to opt out of using it because I don't care to get demos early or any of the other useless options.

Now let’s look at Hulu Plus. Hulu Plus is like regular Hulu but now you have the option of watching seasons of select shows and you get to watch the same amount of commercials as the rest of us. Yes, there might be all of the 5 seasons of News Radio up there, but I'll still have to sit through commercials. I can also accomplish the same task with my subscription to Netflix, and I'm already paying for 1 disc in the mail and unlimited use of the online content. Granted the availability of some shows up there is limited to maybe 1-4 seasons, but Netflix's content database is becoming deeper as we speak. Did I mention that Hulu Plus membership is $9.99/Month? Well I just did!

Putting the two together, Hulu Plus and PSN plus, is something of a joke. I would consider a Hulu Plus subscriptions if the option to use it on my PS3 was free. Hulu's going to take $9.99/month from me already, come-on PSN be the cool kid and let me watch the content for free. Now if I really dig into it, the PS3 isn't what it was suppose to be for me, a full Home Entertainment device. Yes, I can play games, watch Blu-Ray movies, and listen to music, but it doesn't seem to go as far as to replace my laptop. If I’m going to buy into he Hulu Plus brain washing, I might as well as hook my laptop up to my LED TV via HDMI and be done with it.

PSN, give me something to excite me, like cloud based storage and DVR functionality. Think of it, I could go to a buddy’s house and ask them if they saw the last MMA fight, when they say no, I could just pull up my PSN account and start playing it from the network. I know this is a little counter-intuitive with the PSN Movies Store and some of that content, but when you any Shows or Movies from the store, you can only watch it on the PS3 you purchased it from. LAME! Also, PlayStation USA let me have that DVR attachment you've been taunting me with from your European division. That's just mean! Booo!

Double Plus Power, I'm going to have to skip it!

Playstation Blog post about Hulu Plus http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/07/14/hulu-plus-streams-its-way-to-the-ps3/

Information about PlayStaiton Plus http://us.playstation.com/psn/playstation-plus/