Sony: Video Delivery Service will grow weekly

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president and CEO Andrew House has told GamesIndustry.biz that the newly-launched PlayStation Video Delivery Service - which encompasses around 2000 films across Europe, including about 800 for the UK - will grow its offering at a rate of about 50 movies every week.

Speaking in an industry-exclusive interview ahead of the launch of the service, House explained that SCEE would be following the template set out by the US, which has increased its offering "something like 700 per cent" since its launch 15 months ago.

"It'll be a little bit more complex, because we're trying to maintain that mix between Hollywood content as well as local studio content, and also I think we'll see short form and television become part of that play as well," he said.

"But I think we're in a good spot - I think we have something like 2000 movies available at launch, which is a pretty substantial library. Break that down to a per-country basis and there's around 800 films available for the UK, for example.

"So we're starting out with a really strong offering - there's plenty there to choose from, a tremendous number of current hits - and then I think we'll grow it somewhere in the region I hope of about an additional 50 movies per week. So that'll encourage return traffic, people coming back, something new for them there to check out - we're feeling fairly comfortable about the content line-up we've got, and that's led us again to this being the right time to launch."

He also indicated that, following the launch of the PS3 Slim a couple of months ago - which along with a new, lower price point has prompted a 300 per cent increase in the platform's sales numbers - now was the right time to release the service to the market, although there were other considerations as well.

"First and foremost, clearly - if you're going to launch a sufficiently robust video delivery service in Europe then that requires full support from all the Hollywood studios, but another critical component is making sure we have the right mix of local content as well," he explained.

"That takes somewhat longer in terms of the range of partners that are involved, making sure those business deals are put to bed - so I think in some part we didn't want to launch the service until we had all of those components in place, and that's come together now.

"Also, we felt that we were launching at a time - as it turns out, fairly correctly predicting - that with the launch of the PS3 Slim and the new price point that there would be a significant shift in momentum in the market place. It's a good time to have a more... let's say 'family-friendly' price point, to be able to start to introduce services which probably have a broader appeal to the mass market than just pure videogame focus.

"So I think it was a culmination of those factors that made this feel it was the right time to move ahead."

The first part of the interview with Andrew House is available on GamesIndustry.biz now.