80GB PS3 to Receive Video Downloads in Korea?

As we told you yesterday, South Korea will be getting PS3s with 80GB hard drives installed, much better than the paltry 20 and 60GB models available to the rest of the world. Well, now a report in the Korea Times^† seems to indicate why that lucky country will be so blessed, capacity wise. It appears that Sony Computer Entertainment Korea (SCEK) is in negotiations with local broadcasters to provide a video on demand (VOD) service to owners of PS3s in the country.

Sony spokeswoman Park Seo-yun said today that, "We are contacting some Korean firms in order to incorporate VOD applications into PlayStation 3 service line-up." Although no formal word has come from SCEK, it appears that Hanaro Telecom and KT are in negotiations to provide content to the service. A spokesman for Hanaro said "We are negotiating with Sony and the atmosphere is pretty good. We hope we will be able to reach an agreement in June."

You will remember that the Korean launch of the 80Gb PS3 is slated for June 16, so it appears that the VOD service will be available from the start.

Hanaro Telecom has already got a VOD service in place, called HanaTV, which provides movies, music, soap operas, news and more to its 430,000 subscribers who each pay 10,000 won (£5.44 or $10.75) a month. An anonymous source inside Hanaro told the Korea Times that PS3 subscribers will pay the same price to view HanaTV content on their consoles. Nobody from KT, which runs its own VOD service called Megapass TV, would comment further than admitting that the company had met with Sony.

So, is Sony using Korea as a toe in the water for VOD services? How will the PS3 compete with similar services from Apple and Microsoft if and when Sony rolls the VOD service out to other parts of the world? Thoughts as ever should be digitally submitted in the forums.

^{†Korea Times}