iPlayer available officially on PS3 “in due course”, says BBC chief

April 16, 2008 – An official version of the BBC iPlayer will be available on Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) console in “due course”, according to the BBC’s Head of Digital Media Technology, Anthony Rose.

Mr. Rose states on his BBC blog: “As you know, our aim is to make BBC iPlayer available on a broad range of devices.  We’d love to be on every popular device tomorrow, including the PS3, and it was on our road map….. We’re investigating the optimal video profile and browser proposition to enable us to officially make iPlayer available on PS3 in due course.”

The revelation follows news of an unofficial iPlayer hack for the PS3 having emerged, demonstrating the feasibility of the catch-up service on the Sony console.  Mr. Rose also addressed recent reports that claimed Sony and Microsoft wanted too much control over how iPlayer functioned on their respective consoles.

“The reality is that we have finite developer resources,” he added.  “We need to divide our development time between expanding the platforms iPlayer is available on versus all the other cool things that we’re working on (better video quality, personalisation, new site features, etc).”