Sony PlayStation Store vs. iTunes in Canada

With Hulu not rushing into Canadian market seems like we have two major news in online movies and TV shows availability for canadians.

Sony finally launched Movies section in PlayStation Store for Canadians on July 1st 2010.

Yes, now you can buy and rent movies and tv shows right from your game console.

Prior to that the only options to buy and rent movies purely online (without waiting for DVD arriving at your mailbox from Zip.ca) was Apple iTunes.

That's a pleasant July 1st surprise. Unpleasant one - both iTunes and Sony now charge HST for movies, bought/rented online.

Here we compared prices and offerings from both iTunes Canada and Canadian PlayStation Store.

	iTunes	PlayStation Store
Movies (new releases) buy:	$19.99	$19.99 SD $24.99 HD
Movies (new releases) rent:	$4.99	$3.99 SD $4.99 HD
TV Series (new releases) buy per episode:	$3.49	$2.49 SD $3.49 HD

Green Zone and Breaking Bad are posing as "new release" here.

For oldies, prices on both iTunes and PS Store are the same - $3.99 to rent and $9.99 to buy. $1.99 seems to be universally acceptable price for older episode of TV series.

So, first of all - there seems to be less HD movies on iTunes. There are some, but out of the box just few popping up. While PS Store makes a big accent on HD content.

Second - renting new releases are cheper to rent from Sony. One dollar less or HD version for the price of SD at iTunes.

Where iTunes beats PlayStation is variety and special offers. Way more content available from iTunes and there are some special deals like $0.99 rentals weekly, special price on selected titles, free episodes etc.

More content for consumers and competition is good. Hooray!!! Sony for that... Now the next big thing to watch - Netflix streaming service is coming to Canada this fall. 2010. If they would follow US model here in Great White - you'll be able to get access to unlimited movies and TV series for low flat subscription fee. It's $8.99/month in US. How much it would be up here? Can't tell... Any insight would be appreciated.



Another good thing about Netflix - PS3, XBox, iPhone, iPad and even Wii could be your Netflix box. Can't wait, can't wait!!!!