YouTube Comes to PlayStation 3, Wii

By  |  Friday, January 16, 2009 at 1:07 pm

Here’s a statistic that’s bandied about by game industry cheerleaders: roughly 40 percent of U.S. homes own a video game console.

It’s also a figure that will likely be loathed by cable providers if more streaming video Web sites follow YouTube’s lead. Yesterday, Google’s video juggernaut launched a sleek interface for the PlayStation 3 and Wii. It was as good a reason as any to dust off Nintendo’s waggle box, so I checked it out. The service is basically what you would expect and hope for–a browsing and viewing experience that’s tailored to the size of your television screen. A similar channel is already available for TiVo owners.

Of course, YouTube is best for short bursts of random entertainment, and it only makes me yearn for support of a full-featured TV Web site, like Hulu or TV.com. See, I recently gave up cable to find out how much content I could replace with the Internet (and I’m not alone). As a cost-cutting measure, it’s great, but running an RGB cable between my computer and laptop isn’t ideal when I just want to lounge on the couch.

Solutions are on the way, like media streamers and possibly HDTVs that can support Hulu, but that requires an extra purchase. If you’re among the 40 percent that already has a gaming console, chances are you’d want it to be the hub for streaming Internet television instead of something extra. There is a utility called PlayOn that lets you watch Hulu and other sites on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but it requires a computer as the middleman. This can get clumsy if your wireless Internet is on the spotty side.

There’s been some hinting at integration with streaming TV Web sites, at least for the Xbox 360. Here’s hoping it actually happens.

 
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10 Comments For This Post

  1. mathiastck Says:
    January 16th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    Youtube has worked well enough in Opera on the wii. I do like this new interface better though. I had queued up lots of videos I’d favorited while at work, but not watched. They are now queued up on my wii, easily playing one after another.

    Makes me wish for a keyboard for the wii all the more though. Took forever to type http://www.youtube.com/tv in with the wimote. I’d already had youtube.com favorited, but they didn’t try and detect I was from a wii and suggest suggest I try their new page. They probably aren’t looking for that much traffic yet though.

  2. Jared Newman Says:
    January 16th, 2009 at 6:43 pm

    True that. Plus, I clicked “favorites” instead of adding the site to my favorites, which of course shuts down the whole page page, forcing you to type it all over again. Even the Xbox 360 controller is easier to type with.

  3. Adam Edge Says:
    January 17th, 2009 at 12:21 pm

    Here in the UK the BBC iPlayer has a version especially for Wii & PS3 which allows us to watch all manner of full length BBC programmes.

  4. Sam Says:
    September 15th, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    very cool

  5. nick Says:
    September 15th, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    Awesome

  6. Chrissy Says:
    September 15th, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    This post is old…but i never knew i could do that lol

  7. That Free TV Site Says:
    September 28th, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    Love surfin Youtube on my PS3

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    September 29th, 2010 at 3:43 am

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1 Trackbacks For This Post

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