Vudu lands on the PlayStation 3

November 17, 2010 By Geoff Duncan

Vudu high-definition streaming movies will be available to registered PS3 users in the United STates starting next week.

Now that the PlayStation Move is out the door, Sony figures it’s time to turn the PS3 from an exercise-inducing body-moving system back into the couch-potato fantasy that was always intended: Sony and Vudu have announced that Vudu high-definition streaming movies will be available next week in the United States. Tapping into Vudu won’t require a subscription (you pay per individual movie), but does require a PlayStation Network registration to get up and running—PS3 owners just need to go to the PlayStation Store and download the free Vudu application.

Vudu offers high-definition films for instant rental and purchase, streaming to users in HD and HDX 1080p formats, often with 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. Vudu carries many recent releases the same day they’re released on DVD or Blu-ray. The Vudu application also enables users to recommend movies and programming to friends via integrated social networking tools.

The deal makes the PS3 the only gaming console to offer Vudu streaming movies.

Before the end of the year, Vudu is promising to upgrade the PlayStation 3 application to support Vudu 2.0, a revamped version of the Vudu interface that aims to improve basic browsing and navigation, as well as deliver content recommendations based on a user’s viewing history.

Vudu rental fees typically range from $3.99 to $5.99 (although they can dip as low as $0.99), depending on the resolution of the movies. Many movie titles are available to own for fees typically ranging from $9.99 to $19.99, with extremes as low as $4.99 and as high as $24.99.

Showing 5 comments

lisa at 2:57pm 17th November 2010 I use Roku which has an Amazon channel where I order my new releases. Quality is great and the roku box (59$ or so) offeres a lot of other channels (like Hulu plus if you have a subscription). Vudu will probably be the amazon equivalent for ps3.
1. ioman at 3:00pm 17th November 2010 How do the Amazon HD Rentals compare to Netflix in quality?
Lee Maxwell at 10:40am 17th November 2010 "Tapping into Vudu won’t require a subscription" & " Vudu carries many recent releases the same day they’re released on DVD or Blu-ray" Those two lines told me everything I needed to hear! Goodbye Blockbuster Online!!
1. ioman at 11:13am 17th November 2010 You pay as you go though.
ioman at 9:16am 17th November 2010 Would love to see how the video quality on Vudu compares to the HD movies you can rent through the Playstation network or Netflix. Netflix HD seems subpar to me so far, and the rentable movies over the playstation network simply take too long to download or stream.