Hulu Plus hits Sony’s Playstation 3, exclusive until 2011

With the reveal of its premium Hulu Plus service last month, video streaming site Hulu announced that it would be branching out to devices other than computers, including televisions, Apple devices, and game consoles. Today, Hulu Plus has finally landed on the Playstation 3 — although it isn’t available to all PS3 owners just yet — according to the official Playstation blog.

Currently, Hulu Plus is available to a select group of Playstation Plus subscribers — Sony’s $50-a-year premium service. Any Playstation Plus subscriber can download the app, but they’ll need to request an invitation to the Hulu Plus preview period to use it. Once accepted, users pay Hulu Plus’s $9.99 monthly fee to access it. Once the preview period is over in a few months, the app will open up to all Playstation 3 users — by which point it should also be available on Sony’s Bravia TVs, Blu-Ray players, and other web-connected devices.

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Just as Netflix was exclusive to the Xbox 360 for some time, Hulu Plus will be exclusive to Sony’s console until the end of 2010. Meanwhile, Microsoft is readying the service for its Xbox 360 next year.

The exclusivity deal is a coup for Sony, which had to wait a year after Netflix’s streaming service hit the Xbox 360 before it was available for the PS3. Even now, using Netflix on the PS3 requires a separate disc, and it’s unknown when a native Netflix app will hit the console. It’s taken some time, but the console is finally beginning to become the entertainment hub Sony proudly said it would before its 2006 launch.