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loves2splooge on 31 May 2010
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RVDondaPC said:
Scoobes said:
ElGranCabeza said:
I also thought it was fail when I first read but it's not after I did some research. First off, Rome, True Blood and Sopranos are the only shows that are U$2.99 for SD episodes, regular SD episodes on PSN are U$1.99 and HD are U$2.99. Those shows are the exact same prices on itunes, that is, they are U$2.99 for SD on itunes as well and they're not even up on Zune marketplace, so the price is the same as their competitors, and is set by Warner.

As far as the 11 month thing, that is also set by Warner and also affects their competitors, case in point, cable TV Shows will have a delay to keep their premium status intact for the cable providers, for example, Showtime's biggest TV series, Dexter, is up on PSN, Zune and itunes, but Season 4 is not up on any of them because it just ended this past December.

Where PSN fails is where itunes and XBL marketplace have more shows from networks already on PSN, like Married with Children, Cougar Town and Desperate Housewives and more networks that are not yet available on PSN, like NFL football tv

@ bolded:

This is where the whole download thing fails though imo. It's a great idea, but the growth of digital downloads is only going to be stunted by these pricing schemes.

Also, I looked at the comments and the second one is by a programmer at Media Molecule:

"hmm, wait eleven months and then pay $2.99 for it or download it instantly for free from BitTorrent, I wonder which option the public is more likely to go for."

made me lol.

Uhm their goal is not to make downloadable episodes as popular as possible. Their goal is to make money. That's where you fail. What do they care if digital streaming's growth is "stunted" by these pricing schemes? They drop the price to $2 it may see a little bit of growth but they'll be losing more than 1/3 of their margin and they'd be hurting their bread and butter which is the HBO television networks. Sure they could make $.50 episodes but that doesn't mean every single person is all of a sudden gonna start watching every single HBO television series. 

HBO wouldn't be hurting their bread and butter (television networks) by dropping the prices of the episodes on PSN. You can already buy past seasons of HBO series on DVD and Blu-Ray and these season box sets offer great bang for your buck (they even include exclusive extras you won't find on HBO programming to entice people to go out and buy the season boxsets!) So as long as HBO makes their channel the only source for current season/recent episode programming, people will still continue their subscriptions with HBO. Just because someone buys Season 1 and Season 2 of True Blood on DVD/Blu-Ray/digital download/stream it through Netflix doesn't mean they are less likely to subscribe to HBO. They'll want to subscribe to HBO so that they don't have to wait almost a year to watch season 3 episodes.

Also charging more for episodes does not necessarily translate into more revenue. You have to take into account demand. And I'd imagine that demand is going to be insanely low at $3 an episode for SD. Why would the consumer pay $3 an episode for True Blood when they have so many better options available for them? If you want to watch Seasons 1 and 2 of True Blood, you can buy the season disc sets (great bang for your buck and they contain exclusive extras in superb quality), you can stream the episodes off Netflix (only $8.99/month. Want to rent the actual DVDs from Netflix? You can do that too. Want to rent the Blu-Rays? Just pay $1/month more), you can catch season 1 and 2 stuff via HBO On Demand. You can also rent from Blockbuster as well. Many ways to enjoy past seasons of HBO programming through legal channels for better bang for your buck than on the PSN store. If PSN Store and Zune Marketplace want to compete with retail, Netflix, Blockbuster, etc. they need to step up their game.