When Sony Pictures Entertainment President Michael Lynton took to the stage at E3, everyone heaved a collective groan as it seemed that Sony would copy the Xbox One’s announcement event and focus on TV instead of games. Thankfully, Lynton’s time on the stage was brief and only quickly mentioned that SPE would be working on exclusive PSN TV content.
Now, Andrew House, , has elaborated on what that content promise means, as well as revealing that there are 110 million PSN Accounts, telling The Guardian:
It was important that he was on stage: it’s a testament to how far we’ve come with PlayStation 3 in building a really substantial community of networked gamers, who are also interested in other forms of entertainment. Whereas I think you could have slightly accused Sony of a bit of forced synergy, if we’d been trying to enact this collaboration several years ago, the fact is now, with 110 million PlayStation Network (PSN) accounts worldwide, that’s a substantial business opportunity for Sony Pictures to reach a different audience.
So he was talking about two things. One is significant interest and work which is already under way to develop original TV-style programming content, which could be made available with some form of exclusivity to people on the PSN – essentially using PSN as a distribution network. The second point was to find ways to give earlier or exclusive access to other forms of content that Sony Pictures has – again, for people who are on PSN and particularly for members of PlayStation Plus.
Of course, while 110 million does sound like a lot – especially when compared to the 48million XBL users (Gold and Silver) – accounts are easy and free to create, and people often create several for different regions to get everything the PSN has to offer around the world. A more helpful number would be the number of active PSN accounts, but sadly House didn’t reveal how many there are.
What do you hope to see from Sony Pictures? Content like Breaking Bad, or gaming IPs translated to TV? Share your TV pitches in the comments below.
