PS3 as a settop box for IPTV
Posted: December 20th, 2007, by Yunho Chung
The TV market is rapidly changing and of course this is notable also in Korea. Mobile TV, IPTV and so on are changing the playground and many changes and merges are to be seen. I’m currently working on a mobile TV report but I just thought I should mention something about IPTV in Korea as well.
One interesting alliance is between KT (Korea Telecom) and Sony. KT launched an IPTV service called Mega TV earlier this summer and is competing with Hana TV from Hanaro and soon also with LG. Sony is, as we know, competing against Wii and XBox 360 on the video game market, a lucrative market in Korea. Therefore, KT and Sony went together and added the feature that the Playstation 3 (PS3) can be used as a set top box for IPTV. This is an interesting approach to promote both new subscribers for KT and an extra teaser to buy PS3 for the gamers. Simply an alliance that provides mutual benefits and it will be interesting to see how it works out. Hopefully it can be another example where Korea becomes a front runner and a test market for something that the world will benefit from some time ahead.
