No PAL PS3 video store in 2008

By Tom Bramwell Published 17 July, 2008

But Sony is committed to doing one.

Sony Europe boss David Reeves has said that the PS3's new video store will not launch in PAL territories in 2008.

"This will not come to the PAL markets this year," Reeves said at a SCEE event in Santa Monica today.

"But," he continued, "[Sony uber-boss] Sir Howard Stringer has made the commitment that [it] will come to all regions in due course and it will.

"The dates and content for the video download service will be announced later this year.

"For us...local content is key and that is exactly what we're working on right now."

Sony's video store allows US gamers to rent and buy standard and high definition films, which are downloaded and stored on the PS3's hard disk.

What's more, they can be transferred to the PSP and watched on the go.

Reeves wouldn't be drawn on specific video store plans but did point out that the launch of Go!View in the UK and Ireland was a potential consolation.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • spazmo #1 4 years ago

    I take it you interviewed David Reeves?

  • GamesConnoisseur #2 4 years ago

    Would have expected full interview including all the questions we have raised in the past regarding Europe, PSN and my guess is EG had done the interview indeed. They are keeping it as a later feature.

    Would have plently of materials to last EG for good month or so as need to make their E3 trip that much more worthwhile!

  • Max_Powers #3 4 years ago

    Of course we don't get a video store. Late 2009 probably, if ever. At the same time as a Dualshock 3 as standard in the pack, backward compatibility and any decent games...

  • nbnz #4 4 years ago

    Yeah just like the PlayTV was meant to be out Q1, then Q2...seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

  • Darren #5 4 years ago

    This news doesn't surprise me although I was initially caught out by EG's grossly misleading headline yesterday about the PS3 Video Store launching that same night when they neglected to mention it was US only! Ahem.

    Anyway, Microsoft's own EU Video Marketplace launched some six months or so after the US one so there's no way that Sony could have beaten them on that timescale, plus we all know that SCEE are apparently apathetic towards the European market anyway so that certainly doesn't help. ;)

  • Darren #6 4 years ago

    @nbnz - That's Sony's way... announce something exciting, set an estimated release date then keep pushing it back and back until everyone's fed up of waiting for it, e.g. Wipeout HD, Home, PlayTV, etc., etc. They're absolutely useless IMO and would do well to keep quiet about some of these announcements until they know with absolute certainty when it IS going to be released.

  • oreillymj #7 4 years ago

    Advertising market "soft" during "credit crunch".

    EG splits all interviews into 50 sentence size articles. Click rates go through roof. Advertisers happy.

    Problem solved.
    Edited by 1 at 17/07/08 @ 08:40

  • bad09 #8 4 years ago

    Did anyone really think it would see the light of day this year......

    "For us...local content is key and that is exactly what we're working on right now"

    What he meant was "For us....we have Europe already more or less and don't need to provide consumers with anything we do to woo the other regions"

  • m0thr4 #9 4 years ago

    I was trying to decide whether or not to buy an AppleTV as there's a fair amount o overlap in what it has to offer. The one selling point was being able to rent or buy HD movies and play them on my TV... so I guess Apple win that one.

  • moskiitto #10 4 years ago

    Well cant really blame Sony for this. USA and Japan arent divided by many countries with their own rules while Europe is. It will take more time.

  • woodnotes #11 4 years ago

    Microsoft's European one is finally starting to get better. And now MGM have joined the other day, I've already downloaded and watched Robocop, The Terminator and Ronin in HD. Awesome stuff.

  • MaxiSleep #12 4 years ago

    For us...local content is key and that is exactly what we're working on right now."


    Complete arse. This is just the US media pigopilists screwing europe once more.

  • CannonAnBall #13 4 years ago

    It will take time. Everyone should have known this. Microsoft took a while. iTunes felt like an age to get here.

    Plus Sony will have to speak to the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and other such shitty channel networks in order to get TV content on the store.

  • themorganator #14 4 years ago

    More evidence that Sony loves Europe.

    Oh, hang on.....

  • General_Zod #15 4 years ago

    Once again Europe is treated like a leper colony by one of the hardware companies even though it generates the most cash.

  • bad09 #16 4 years ago

    @ CannonAnBall

    I take your point the licensing rights are all over the place and inadequate for these days of global internet economy.

    The irony is Hollywood cry to governments to protect their precious movies from the big bad internet, yet when someone offers something which may reduce the piracy they can't get released for ages in Europe because of red tape. Guaranteed we are still waiting next July........

  • BOBBYLUPO #17 4 years ago

    Fair enough, it must take ages to translate episodes of Lovejoy into 27 languages.

  • FladgeMangle #18 4 years ago

    Utter cockwash!

    Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Why haven't they been doing the talking part already and why, in a multi-national corpration, do the always treat Europe like a massive surprise?

    "Whoa! They speak more than one language overe there?! Jeez we better start thinking about planning to do something about that!"

    "Again"

  • alimokrane #19 4 years ago

    Well, to be fair, MS did the same. It takes time to do these things so let's cut them some slack.

  • andijames #20 4 years ago

    @Max_Powers

    DS3 Standard from next month with 80GB SKU. BC is gone and there's plenty of decent games out there! Difference of SD content can vary a lot and they have to source UK providers for it plus they're going to make sure the US one runs well before releasing it all overso a six month(ish) delay makes sense!
    Edited by 1 at 17/07/08 @ 10:05

  • Kenshin001 #21 4 years ago

    Sony are a fucking joke. They deserve to lose this gen.

  • Teamallstar #22 4 years ago

    Unbelievable.

    I'm pretty sick and tired of Sony at the moment. Everything they announce has some sort of caveat be it a delayed launch date or cancelling something they have promised.

  • Moz #23 4 years ago

    You see I don't get it, it's like SCEE wait for SCEA to do something then start the work they need to do to bring it to Europe, the main issue of course being licencing and age restriction laws, but surely they [SCEE] could have been sorting that out whilst SCEA developed the software for it!

  • Skeletor #24 4 years ago

    It's the film industry and their business methods that is a fucking joke. And that's why people will continue to download illegaly sd and hd movies over p2p and usenet. It seems as the industry is simply not in a hurry when it comes to Europe, probably making enough money with disc sales...

  • Moz #25 4 years ago

    A point maybe worth making on things like play TV is that most things aimed at the European market are now delt with at Liepzig (can't spell it sorry) wouldn't surprise me if play TV is being held for liepzig, it's possible that the new singstar improvements have been planned for announcing at liepzig (remeber the first PS3 installment hasn't been out in the states that long) DS3 inclusion probably also a liepzig anouncment. E3 is no longer the only big show in the west so all the companies need to save stuff for the other big shows.

  • Wander #26 4 years ago

    Considering the resources SCEE has, I'm surprised at the lack of delivery in all areas. I reckon Kaz needs to don his steel toe capped boots and pay Europe a little visit.

    Before someone mentions Singstar - I’m a gamer, not a singer.

  • Ryze #27 4 years ago

    Did the PSP GPS even get released yet?

    Why didn't they tell anyone about it if it has? FOOLS!

  • mischief #28 4 years ago

    its due out tomorrow ryze

  • Ryze #29 4 years ago

    cheers chief.

    Crazy that your comment is more informative than Sony's marketing.

  • Widge #30 4 years ago

    When is Liepzig btw?

  • The_Programmer #31 4 years ago

    For all those that keep saying it took Microsoft time to get the video marketplace up & running - What was Sony doing at this same time then? They didn't need the PS3 to be even out to negotiate the licences that they would need. It's like Trophies. Sony knew that Microsoft was doing achievements before release of the consoles so why has this only happened now.

    When are Sony going to stop playing catch-up and start leading again?

  • canIdoyabombsforya #32 4 years ago

    "When are Sony going to stop playing catch-up and start leading again? "

    Sony leading? Like what, Casette Walkmans, Trinitron CRT TVs, PS1, and the 3 months that DVD in the PS2 was really something.

    TBH just reduce the cost of Blu-Ray movies to that of DVD, with plenty of less than a fiver bargains.
    The best movie bang for the buck is HD-DVD at the moment, a dead format flying off the shelves.

  • Miths #33 4 years ago

    UK in late 2009 - rest of Europe around 2014. Well, at least I was planning on building up a sizeable Blu-ray movie collection anyway.

  • dazzaman #34 4 years ago

    Can videos be access via the US store if you log on a UK PS3 with teh suitable account?

  • AndyMP #35 4 years ago

    It's bad enough that the announcement never stated that it would be available only in the US. Not even North America, because it doesn't include Canada... so it's literally, US only. But what I can't accept is that something like this could be announced and that they had absolutely no idea whatsoever on when it would be available in a region such as the UK. It shows they've given no consideration to this region at all to this point... and probably won't for a considerable amount of time. And heh, even when or if it does ever become available, it will be twice as expensive as in the US.

    There's still no getting away from regionalisation, even in a global word such as that which we live in today.
    Edited by 1 at 17/07/08 @ 16:35