Sony UK To Launch Playstation VOD Service Within Weeks

Sony has confirmed yesterday during the press conference at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany, that it will be offering a Video On Demand service to Playstation 3 Users in Europe.

The service will allow owners to download movies from the Playstation Store to their consoles with the option of either buying or renting the footage; users will be able to choose between HD and SD vrsions as well.

Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Disney and Fox have already signed on as content partners and other should follow soon. 

The US version has more than 1200 television episodes and 300 movies with around a third available in HD. Expect the service to be tightly integrated to Sony's Playstation Network. 

This however pales in comparison to Apple's iTunes store which comes with more than 11 million songs and podcasts, more than 3000 TV shows and 2500 movies as well as more than 50,000 applications.

BBC's iPlayer is also set to debut on the Playstation and PS3 owners will be able to stream BBC content to their console via the PSN. This follows last year's PS3 Hacker Project which, we understood, attracted some interest from the corporation.

Microsoft is also expected to partner with Hulu.com (and has already signed an agreement with French Canal Plus) and launch on the Xbox 360 by the end of the year.

In addition, Microsoft has is also set to launch an online music streaming service and has already launched an online video on demand service via MSN player plus has promised to bring Facebook, Last.fm and Twitter on Xbox Live.