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Sony PS3 to offer Hulu Plus preview immediatelyThe Associated PressLOS ANGELES — Some PlayStation 3 users in the US will be able to try out the $9.99-per-month video subscription plan from Hulu right away. Sony Corp. says that means the PlayStation 3 will be the only game console able to play streaming videos………..

Just a couple of weeks ago, on June 29, it looked like Sony would have to wait a few months to offer the Hulu Plus subscription service through some of its products. Sony announced today that certain PlayStation 3 owners will get access to the $9.99-a-month video-subscription plan immediately.

Only people in the U.S. who already subscribe to Sony’s new $49.99-a-year PlayStation Plus network subscription service will be invited to sign up for Hulu Plus. The PlayStation Network has 50 million registered users but Sony has been trying to increase revenue with a subscription service, which offers select downloads and game trials. A wider rollout to all U.S. PlayStation 3 users will come later.

Sure, we already told you what Hulu Plus looked like on iPhone, iPad and a Samsung TV, and not much has changed since that juncture, but we expect a number of you care quite a bit about how it will operate on PlayStation 3, especially considering you’ll (presently) have to cough up an additional $50 annually for the privilege. The good news is it’s absolutely nothing like the PS3’s disc-based Netflix solution — here, you’re looking at a responsive experience through and through, and the interface is about as simple and full-featured as we’d hoped.

After a 28MB download, we were invited to either log in with an email/password combination or link our console at Hulu’s website, both of which launched the program nigh instantly from the hard drive. The interface afterwards is a dead-ringer for the Samsung TV version, except optimized for console control, with the analog stick and shoulder buttons smartly seeking through programs at high speed, or tapped to jump ahead in fifteen-second increments. You can similarly adjust video quality (and thus, bandwidth usage) with a press of the R1 button, watch picture-in-picture programs while you browse, and the search function admirably narrows down Hulu’s content as quickly as you can type the letters in.

It does have its bugs, like when we tried to watch High Fidelity and were asked if we wanted to subscribe to the show, and there was the time we got caught in an unending advertising loop for body wash, but that time we think the app was just trying to tell us something. Yeah, we’d better run out to the store, but don’t go away — hit the gallery below for a brief tour.

Resources :businessweek.com,engadget.com