In a recent interview with 1UP Phil Harrison, president of studios worldwide for Sony, said that the long term plan for the Playstation3 is to add digitally downloaded content to the existing built-in hard drive, including movies and TV shows.

Harrison stated that having the downloaded content was part of a 10-year plan, but also noted that the technology is already there to make this possible and its likely that it will come to fruition soon. This media download service would put the PS3 in direct runnings with the Microsoft Xbox which currently has a similar service, and could help its running against the Nintendo Wii which does have internet based interactive content through the Wii Channels, but does not download media to the game console.

“Well we made a very conscious decision in putting a hard drive in every machine and a minimum of 20GB, 60GB…” said Harrison during the interview. He continued, “The decision we made to put a hard drive in every PlayStation 3 was because we saw the long term benefit. The ten year plan of allowing people to download all kinds of digital content to their PlayStation 3 — not just games but movies, music, HD, standard definition TV, you name it. And that was a significant investment, but it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

This service would hopefully help improve the sales of the PS3 for Sony but unfortunately analysts estimate Sony loses money on each console sold, which will only be resolved through cost reductions or a price increase. With the competition they way it is, Sony will likely have to manage the former of the two. “Obviously, we are investing our money in making PlayStation 3s cheaper to manufacture — that’s part of our business plan.”, said Harrison.