PlayStation Home brings group movie watching to PS3 via Crackle

By Mike Flacy Published November 21, 2011

While Sony rolled out a sizable revision to PlayStation Home approximately three weeks ago, the social gaming environment has been expanded today to include virtual movie watching with friends. Pretty much identical to the concept of party viewing on the Xbox 360, the update to PlayStation Home allows PlayStation 3 owners to bring up movies served through the Sony Pictures Entertainment-owned Crackle and play the films within the virtual environment. Opposite from services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Vudu on the PS3, there is no charge to watch movies through Crackle’s service.

After creating an avatar within PlayStation Home, the user navigates the avatar to the Sunset Yacht, Hollywood Hills or LOOT EOD theater. Specifically at those locations, the user can bring up a Crackle menu designed for the PlayStation 3 controller and stream a film. The user can also invite up to eleven friends to join the streaming event and share comments while watching the movie. Feature movies include Step Brothers, Starship Troopers, Resident Evil, Snatch, Ultraviolet, Cruel Intentions, Desperado and Rudy. Crackle’s television library includes older shows such as Seinfeld, Married with Children and Newsradio. Crackle also has a variety of Anime shows in addition to original programming.

Recommended Videos

Sony has plans to expand this concept of social sharing to live events and music within the PlayStation Home environment. Sony is utilizing Ustream for live events and plans to allow broadcasts of this content in both public and private LOOT spaces. In regards to social music sharing, Sony is implementing RadioIO to create a new LOOT item called Entertainment On Demand Active Radio and allow users to listen to music channels, both in private and public spaces. Radio channels include genres such as classical, jazz, country, rock, pop, hip hop, R & B, electronic and dance.

Contributing Editor

By day, I'm the content and social media manager for High-Def Digest, Steve's Digicams and The CheckOut on Ben's Bargains…

Topics

Gaming

Forget console wars. Steam Machine may help kill lazy PC gaming ports

Valve’s expensive mini PC could become PC gaming’s new baseline

Steam Machine with Steam Controller

Valve’s Steam Machine has become easy to dunk on. The price starts well above current consoles, and the hardware sits somewhere between entry-level and mid-range gaming PCs rather than a monster rig. Early reviews have also talked about how demanding games need upscaling, trimmed settings, and realistic expectations.

With the ongoing memory crisis, it sounds like a rough time to bring a PC to the couch. Though the Steam Machine doesn't need to beat high-end gaming PCs or the big consoles. Its purpose was different from the start. And what really makes it better is how it could shift the PC gaming segment entirely.

Gaming

GTA 6 may not get the real physical release fans were hoping for

The game may come in a case, but not on a disc

GTA 6 cover art

Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders recently went live, but the excitement came with one frustrating catch. The so-called physical edition of the game will not include a disc. Instead, buyers will get a box with cover art and a download code inside.

That decision immediately caused backlash online, especially among collectors who still care about owning games on disc. For a while, there was some hope that this would only be temporary. Reports suggested that Rockstar could release a proper disc version of GTA 6 in December 2026, giving physical media fans something to wait for.

Gaming

The Steam Machine launch hasn’t even happened, but the resale circus has begun

Scalpers are already trying to cash in on Valve’s Steam Machine

Valve Steam Machine Featured Design Coverplate

Valve has started sending out reservation emails for the Steam Machine ahead of its June 30 launch, and scalpers have wasted no time turning the whole thing into a comedy act.

The Steam Machine is already an expensive device, as RAM and SSD prices have made hardware pricing miserable across the industry. Valve has previously said it would like to lower the price if component costs improve. That makes the resale listings even harder to take seriously, because the official price was already higher than many people expected before scalpers added their own fantasy tax.