Turn PS3 into a digital personal video recorder and record programmes to watch anytime, anywhere
Leipzig, 22 August 2007. At Games Convention today, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) announced the introduction of PlayTV, a combined TV tuner and Personal Video Recorder (PVR) for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™).
Context & Ripple Effects
SCEE used its Leipzig Games Convention stage to turn the PLAYSTATION®3 into a digital television recorder, announcing PlayTV — a combined TV tuner and PVR that lets owners record broadcast programmes for viewing anytime. The confirmed positioning is explicit: record now, watch anywhere.
The move lands in a market where recording has already migrated off dedicated hardware: ReplayTV had pivoted toward a DVR built for the PC back in December 2005, and TiVo showed a cable-card-equipped Series3 at CES 2006. Sony's angle is different — instead of adding another box, it folds the tuner into hardware millions already own.
First-order effects
- European PS3 owners gain scheduled digital-TV recording without buying a separate set-top device, extending the console's role beyond games into daily broadcast television.
Second-order effects
- Standalone PVR makers such as TiVo and the PC-DVR vendors face a competitor whose incremental cost of adding recording is near zero, since the console and its hard drive are already in the living room.
Third-order effects
- If consoles keep absorbing tuner-and-recorder duties, the dedicated DVR risks becoming a feature rather than a product category — with games-platform holders, not consumer-electronics firms, deciding what the living-room recorder looks like.
The trend: Games consoles are absorbing the personal video recorder, pulling broadcast-TV timeshifting onto general-purpose living-room hardware.