Hulu Plus

[Capt_Thad]

Looks like they've put up a preview for their new pay service:

http://www.hulu.com/plus

From the guided tour video: "What is Hulu plus? It's not a replacement for Hulu.com, it's something new."

Full seasons instead of just a few trailing eps, and an expanded catalogue. Plus they show support for various devices, including the PS3 (July) and the 360 ("early 2011"). It's pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Wonder if it'll be worth the $10 a month they want for it.

[gzsfrk]

If it's $10 on top of what I'm already paying for XBL Gold, then forget it. But if MS can wrangle this as being another "perk" of a Gold membership (similar to what they're doing with the ESPN content), then I'm all on board.

That being said, I read somewhere that there would still be commercials even IF you're a Hulu Plus member, which is hella poor form right there, and just downright greedy.

[Capt_Thad]

I did notice that being advertisement free wasn't mentioned, you'd figure if it was a feature they'd have it up there... so I'm expecting that's prolly true. Shrug, I pay way more for my cable tv, and they certainly don't spare the advertisements there. There are some other services (like Crunchyroll) that do drop the ads for the paying people though, so I guess it's a matter of perspective.

I suspect the membership thing for the XBL people will be the same as Netflix. It's an independent service that you happen to be able to use with the Xbox, not an MS funded thing. Unless you think that MS is going to siphon out membership fee money to cover the feature. It's a shame that you have to be a gold member for Netflix when the other systems get it for free. Maybe they'll make it available for people with silver to access, but I think they'll want to avoid setting that precedent. More incentive to pay for Gold, right?

It's not $10 on top of your fee though, your membership isn't restricted to a single device. If you're already paying for XBL gold membership and you're a Hulu plus member, it's not an added cost to watch it on your xbox. That would only matter if you used the gold membership specifically for Hulu plus.