E3 2010: Sony launches PSN Plus

Premium subscription for PlayStation Network users unveiled at E3

By Nick Cowen, Video games correspondent Los Angeles
Published: 12:09PM BST 16 Jun 2010

Sony's new subscription-based PSN Plus network will give users access to exclusive features and content

Sony has announced PSN Plus, a premium subscription-based service for its PlayStation Network, at the E3 expo in Los Angeles. Sony president Jack Tretton said PSN Plus users would gain access to an exclusive set of features and content, such as preferred early downloads of demos and select betas, as well as free content including full PSN games, themes and avatars.

Tretton said that subscribers to the new service would also receive discounts for products on the PlayStation Store and a variety of online services including automatic downloads and firmware updates. He said that PSN Plus will be made available to US PlayStation 3 owners from June 29, with a one-year subscription costing $49.99, and a three-month pass costing $17.99. Sony will be offering free access to PSN Plus for a three-month trial period.

Sony plans to update PSN Plus content every month "in order to provide more value for subscribers". In the first month PSN Plus will offer the full game of Wipeout HD, a full game trial of InFamous, Minis and classic PlayStation One titles such as Age Of Zombies, Field Runners and Rally Cross.

Sony has promised that all features currently available on the PlayStation Network will remain free; only PSN Plus features will carry the subscription price tag.

PSN Plus’s arrival on the PlayStation Network follows months of speculation about Sony’s plans to introduce a premium service on PSN which PS3 owners would have to pay for. It was announced as part of Sony’s E3 keynote press briefing at E3, which also saw the unveiling of 3D games for the PS3 and some gaming demos for titles which make us of the Sony PlayStation Move wireless controller.

YouTube launches online video editor

Cloud-based application enables people to edit videos online before uploading them to YouTube

Published: 11:42AM BST 17 Jun 2010

YouTube has launched an online video editor to make it easier for people to edit and publish their clips on the video-sharing site

YouTube has launched a cloud-based video-editing tool to enable people to edit their videos online before uploading them to the video-sharing website.

The YouTube Video Editor allows users to "mash" multiple existing videos to create a new, longer video, as well as to trim the beginning or end of videos to make them shorter. The editor can also be used to add soundtracks to a click, and provides one-click publishing to YouTube without needing to re-upload the new clip first.

"The editor is ideal for merging single, short clips in to a longer video," said Rushabh Doshi, a Google software engineer, and Joshua Siegel, a Google product manager, in a YouTube blog post. "For example, you can transform clips from your vacation in to a video travel diary set to music, or create a highlights reel from footage of your last basketball game.

"It's also great for trimming a long video down to the moments you really care about. Say you've uploaded a wedding ceremony – a beautiful event, but do you really need to see all the guests shuffle in? The video editor lets you easily remove unwanted footage so you can capture just the moment when they say, 'I do'."

Google, which owns the video-sharing website, has made the editor available through the TestTube section of YouTube, which hosts new and experimental features.