I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy and, as a natural born pessimist, I find myself thinking along the lines of a conspiracy theorist all the time, even if I don’t take the time and effort to make it known. I often suspect malicious plots, intentional sabotage, and corporate rivalry at the expense of the consumers’ best interest. That said, after an email this morning from a Blu Show listener, I got to thinking… maybe it would be entertaining to toss some of these random ideas out there and discuss them as a series of articles every once in a while. They’re all completely off the cuff and not based on any hard proof. That said, you might actually end up agreeing with some of these theories (or better yet, convincing me otherwise!) First up? Hulu recently refusing to play some videos on the PS3…
Quite a while back now, Sony updated their web browser with updated (and somewhat selective) Flash 9 support. When that happened, a lot of unexpected sites suddenly worked in the PS3’s browser. Hulu.com was one of those sites. I checked it out at the time and while it was a bit clunky using with a controller (and the keyboard add-on), it did work. The frame rate was slightly off, but it was completely watchable. I’ve watched at least a dozen shows from Hulu via the PS3 browser and if the show’s any good, you quickly forget that you’re watching via the PS3 browser (I always zoomed it to full screen via R2 as it worked better than telling Hulu to go full-screen… at least for me it did.)
Fast forward to this month, and BLAMO! Hulu content isn’t working on the PS3, when it did just recently. We just had a firmware update on the PS3 at approximately the same time period and Hulu updated their terms of service, but as of right now we’ve got no official word to let us know exactly what’s going on. Are Hulu doing to the PS3 what they did to Boxee? One thing that makes me scratch my pessimistic head is the fact that changing your browser’s user-string to match the PS3’s will get Hulu blocked from your PC as well. I mean to me, this says Hulu is intentionally and explicitly blocking the PS3 browser.
Considering for a moment we accept that Hulu is in fact blocking the PS3 browser, what would be a valid reason for them doing that? The PS3 browser is just a browser, so it’s not like the ads are being ripped out or the Hulu.com interface/ads aren’t being viewed. For all intents and purposes, the PS3 browser should have every right to view the content as a Mac or PC running whatever OS and browser they want. The PS3 browser isn’t misusing or abusing the system in any way. This leaves me with two reasons that I can think of that would cause Hulu to intentionally block the PS3 browser. We’ll start with the most conspiracy-inducing reason first (which, ironically, is the one I think holds the least water but is still entirely plausible.)
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from the UK so have never watched them anyway
im sure sites like mega video still work so no need to worry 
well…….. hulu isn’t working on the previous 2.74 firmware either. Rule out the PS update….
This is too easy. Microsoft is obviously the man behind the curtain on this one.
As bbqfox pointed out above, Hulu is only relevant to America because it’s blocked everywhere else. As we’ve seen time and time and time again, Microsoft is MUCH better than Sony when it comes to catering to the US. For Microsoft, America is without a question #1 priority and Sony just kind of groups the US in with the rest of the world. And my guess is Hulu realizes this so the idea of them trying to strong arm Sony into giving them money so that PS3 owners ONLY in America can continue watching Hulu is pretty ridiculous.
My guess is Microsoft has been going after Hulu exclusiveness for awhile and probably was REALLY hoping to be able to announce it at E3 along with all their other internet/social media related announcements but a deal just couldn’t be reached in time. You even said it yourself rothbart, MS loves to buy exclusivity.
Expect an announcement from Microsoft in the coming months on this.
And if what I said above turns out to be true, think about how HUGE of an exclusivity deal that is. Yes, you were able to watch Hulu on the PS3 browser or even hook up a laptop to your TV, but how many people really wanted to go to all that trouble? And even then the PS3 browser option was buggy.
So think about how huge it would be for Microsoft to release a simple, easy-to-use implementation of Hulu exclusively on the 360. It would be just like all the hype they received over the Netflix integration but 100-fold because Hulu is one of the fastest growing websites on the internet and more importantly FREE. Enabling people to easily watch Hulu on their home entertainment centers without any fuss whatsoever would be a HUGE draw for lots of people who have never even really considered purchasing a console.
If this whole Hulu-blocked-on-PS3 fiasco plays out like I think it’s going to, Sony really is up sh!t-creek without a paddle.
Would MS really bring Hulu to xboxlive? Wouldn’t that make a huge dent in their profits from marketplace sales?