Hulu Plus Now Open to All

By  |  Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 4:55 pm

If you’re itching to pay $10 per month for Hulu Plus, you no longer have to get an invitation to the party.

Hulu announced today that its premium service is now open to everyone. Hulu Plus is still technically in its preview stage, but at least now you can try the service without waiting for an arbitrary go-ahead. (For Playstation 3 users, the service will stop requiring a Playstation Plus subscription within the next week.)

Hulu Plus provides access to full archives of TV shows, instead of just the most recent episodes. More importantly, it’s the only way to get the service on non-PC devices like the iPhone, iPad, web-connected Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players and the PS3. Hulu has actively blocked Android phones and Google TV, both of which are capable of accessing the basic website.

So far, Hulu’s doing a respectable job of supporting more devices. Today’s announcement included the addition of Sony Bravia TVs, with support for other Bravia devices to come. The service is also coming to Vizio connected TVs and to set-top boxes from Roku and TiVo. The Xbox 360 will get Hulu Plus next year.

Where Hulu has faltered, however is in adding incentives for people whose set-tops and portables are already supported. Back episodes only last so long, so I’d really like to see new series — or movies, even — that are exclusive to Hulu Plus.

That said, Peter Kafka recently reported a rumor that Hulu may cut the subscription rate to $5 per month. As far as incentives go, that’d be a good one.

 
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  1. Jeff Says:

    They'd have to add a lot more shows for me to be interested – there's very little in Hulu Plus's catalog right now compared to what is currently available on Hulu's site .