Bias! Bias! Bias, I say!

Most of these new fandangled TVs have ntsc locked in there anyway, and heck even a £20 dvd player has a converter in it, ---- PAL

Meanwhile, the studios are trying to remove the internet connections of people who are downloading content by other means that have no region restriction. So, as usual, the pirated content is both easier to obtain and more widely available than the real thing.

If only these people could recognise the cause and effect of trying to control their content in this way...

Is it possible to just create a US account on the PS3, use this movie store and buy whatever you want to watch using Entropay as you can for the regular US Playstation store content?

"er... and isn't Sony one of the "big six"? :)"

Yes indeed they are. But can you imagine the grilling Sony would get for launching a Sony-only movie store in Europe, because all the other studios wanted region locking and timed releases?

Hardly suprising Sony are playing cautious, with all the Sony haters with loaded guns...

From what all I've read, I think quite a few Sony divisions do not want copy restrictions, region restrictions, etc.; but, Sony Entertainment does, and (despite making less cash than SCEI I think), seems to have more influence. I had read that the division that made DAT players, asked to be able to make the last DAT model copy-restriction free... since, after all, it was the final DAT product being made. But Sony (probably Sony Entertainment) said "no", so they released the final model, the whole division quit en-masse and went to Google Japan.

Doesn't stop me from not buying anything Sony, the outcome is still making unnecessarily restricted devices, putting spyware on CDs, and so on. But, it does explain why you'll see inconsistencies between the products.

what are they actually like?? having never used the 360 store to download anything and my only contact with downloading a film has been, er.. on the grey side of the line!

a 4gb dvd rip is pretty good, but you would struggle to get a nice HD film and sound track in that amount of data... and knowing how slowly the PS3 downloads as opposed to 'other means' of file aquisition I would expect it would be faster to order the Blueray from Play than to wait for a movie to squeeze its way down to the PS3 :)

yes, any decent dv can handle NTSC these days (and have been able to for YEARS!)

but as someone said movie content isnt worldwide distributable likes games are. lots of movies have different distributers for different regions (hence we had the region locking on DVDs)

for me this isnt a big thing... can we really expect UK broadband to cope with downloading 50gb in 90 mins (average film length and HD file size)...

"I could be wrong, but isn’t the term ‘PAL territories’ a little Archaic seeing that you need an HDMI connection to use a PS3" - bollocks... you can even use composite ffs...

HD-DVD DID have region locking in the spec, they simply had not implemented it on the disks released up to the time the format was ditched. The HD-DVD consortium chose not to correct people when the were saying "no region coding" as a positive for HD-DVD when the format war started.

the best reason to download. It's like a signed up legitimate reason to pirate. "We're not releasing it in your region till later coz you don't matter"/"We're charging you twice as much in you region coz you suck" becouse we're the law and we can price fix however we damn well please. Well mofo I'm downloading your movie/series/game from some open hearted sob in the States, how do you like them apples?

Of course I'm not, Western music/films/games/series for the most suck hard.

That Sony could have asked any UK distributors in enough time that it was ready to launch the store at the same time.

No point blaming the studios for Sony's lack of planning.

And here is the funny part. The lack of region coding on HD DVD is what killed it, studios jumped to Blu-ray as it offered region locking AND uncracked protection scheme..

You might think lack of region coding was good, but at the end of the day, it was the formats downfall...

"But can you imagine the grilling Sony would get for launching a Sony-only movie store in Europe, because all the other studios wanted region locking and timed releases?"

A grilling from whom?

If they were offering their own content without region coding no-one could say anything. The moment anyone accused them of it being anti-competitive they'd simply point out that they are more than willing to serve other producers' content on their region-free network.

Then, with the smuggest grin you've ever seen, Sony would say that none of the other producers were willing to compete in the global free market that they had created. They'd paint themselves as trailblazers breaking down the barriers to a truly competitive market and play up all the consumer advantages. It'd be like calling out the entertainment industry.

"What's the matter Viacom, are you chicken? "

The service wasn't launched in North America - just in the US. We Canucks also won't see the service for some time yet.

Sony are just one member of the Blu-ray consortium. As such, they didn't have final say whether to introduce the region coding and BD+ features that Disney and Fox demanded as part of the spec before they would go with the format rather than HD-DVD.

Personally, I'm just buying a US PS3.