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PlayStation Network executive producer of original programming Kevin Furuichi told me during a phone conversation last week that The Tester’s third season, which begins this Tuesday, will for the first time be available for streaming on the web as well, which should result in even bigger viewership numbers. “We are really excited that we are able to deliver an audience,” Furuichi told me.

Check out the trailer below:

The Tester has twelve gamers competing in challenges that look like a mixture of Fear Factor and real-life video games, and the winner will get a job as a Production Associate in Sony’s Santa Monica video game development studio. Furuichi told me that his team initially tried to make The Tester look more like a web series, with shorter, snack-sized episodes. But the audience actually wanted to see more, so now the show is running half an hour per episode, much like a traditional TV show. Furuichi readily admitted that Sony learned some things from traditional TV production for The Tester: “It is not about changing reality TV,” he said.

So why does Sony produce original programming like The Tester for its PlayStation Network audience? It obviously works well as branded entertainment; the contestants regularly get to try out new Sony game titles, and even meet a few game industry legends. But Furuichi also said that it’s about adding value to the PlayStation Network in general. “It brings people into the network,” he told me.

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To be sure, the new name is not exactly streamlined and zippy, and sounds confusingly similar to one of Sony’s existing product divisions:

“Sony Network Entertainment introduces Sony Entertainment Network,” reads the Sony blog post describing the new platform.

Sony Entertainment Network will encompass Video on Demand powered by Qriocity, which will now be called simply Video Unlimited; and Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, which will become Music Unlimited; and the PlayStation Network. The changes were detailed by Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, at the IFA show in Berlin, Germany, today.

While the rebranding could simplify the Sony’s cloud entertainment offerings to the market, it will also have the added bonus of taking away a name that became synonymous with the hacking scandal that hit Sony earlier this year, in which millions of accounts were compromised around the world and the network shut down for weeks, and which it says will result in a “signficant decrease” in sales this year.

The announcement coincided with Sony’s other big news today from IFA: the official unveiling of two new tablets — the company’s first foray into the market currently dominated by iPad.

In the publicity around those two tablets, Sony touted the many entertainment services it had in place that would link up with the new devices, including Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited — without mentioning the Qriocity brand.

In addition to being available on Sony’s tablets, Sony announced today that Music Unlimited will also start to be offered in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium by the end of this year.

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PlayStation 3 users haven’t just been locked out of online games, but also have been unable to access video services like Netflix or Hulu Plus, which both require a PlayStation Network subscription. Also unavailable are VOD rentals from Sony’s PlayStation store, as well as programming from MLB.tv. Vudu rentals, on the other hand, are accessible without any issue, we confirmed this week, which suggests the Walmart-owned download store interacts differently with the Playstation Network than Netflix and Hulu Plus.

While online video services like Netflix and Hulu Plus have rapidly increased the number of consumer electronics devices they are available on, game consoles still represents a large percentage of viewing. Netflix, for instance, claims to be available on more than 250 different devices, but the PS3 is definitely one of the more dominant players. Sony’s PlayStation Network has more than 70 million users worldwide, and the console maker had sold close to 18 million PS3s in the U.S. alone by the end of last year. Just for comparison’s sake, Roku has sold a little more than a million of its broadband set-top boxes.

The outage is particularly cruel for Netflix users, who are able to launch the Netflix UI after going through a number of failed attempts to log into the Playstation Network. Users are able to select a title for streaming, and the application even starts buffering the stream. However, another log-in window pops up, and the app throws the user back into the catalog overview after the log-in fails. Check the video embedded below for all the depressing details:

A Netflix spokesperson told us the company is redirecting any requests by end users who inquire about the issue to Sony. Hulu wasn’t available for comment at the time of writing, but the company has reportedly started to offer refunds to some of its customers to make up for the fact that they can’t access the service on their PS3.

Update: Judging from our comments, some people have been able to access Netflix streams despite the PlayStation Network outage. However, we tried multiple times yesterday without success, and also talked to a number of users who ran into the same issues described above. Individual results may vary.

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About an hour ago, Sony released a blog post saying that it hopes to have the two services restored by the end of the week. It also, for the first time, provided some more detail about what happened:

We believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

The PlayStation Network is a service that lets users play against other players on the network, as well as chat to each other. The Qriocity service, meanwhile, is Sony’s new cloud-based digital entertainment venture, offering users music, TV shows, films and other entertainment streamed to various Sony devices. The company has not provided any numbers on how many subscribers Qriocity has today, but the PlayStation Network connects some 75 million users internationally.

The outage actually goes back to last week, when Sony identified that an external intrustion on the system that runs the PlayStation Network and Qriocity. Since closing down, Sony has seen tens of thousands of comments from users on its PSN Facebook page and on Twitter. Now that it’s admitted the possibility of a serious data leak, those comments are likely to get a little angrier.

Sony is advising users to be more vigilant about their account statements and credit reports; to make sure not to provide any personal information to anyone requesting it in connection with Sony; and to change all passwords when the services are restored.

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The service will initially draw on the customer base Sony has built up through users logged into its PlayStation Network on PS3 and PSP gaming devices, but the PlayStation Network will be just the starting point for the new service. According to the FT, streaming video and audio could also become available on Sony “Walkman music players, Vaio computers, Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players and Sony Ericsson mobile phones” in the future.

The Sony service is expected to launch next year, as connectivity across Sony devices proliferates. The FT reports that Sony president Howard Stringer “said last year that 90 percent of Sony products would be able to connect to each other and the Internet by 2011.”

This isn’t Sony’s first foray into offering up a digital storefront for media on its devices; it previously launched a service called Sony Connect that sold DRM-protected music files that were only accessible on Sony products. The service proved unsuccessful and was shuttered in 2007, leaving Apple to take over the digital music scene with iTunes.

This time around, Sony will face significant competition from Apple again, as the latter is expected to announce streaming capabilities at an event held this morning in San Francisco, Calif. More on that event later.

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Both announcements are apparently imminent, with the Journal reporting that the paid service could start as early as “later this month,” Kafka agreeing that it could start “next week” and Bloomberg saying that the cooperation would Sony “could be announced as soon as next week.”

There have been rumors about Hulu Plus for months now, and first reports about an iPad app surfaced in March. However, details are still scarce. Here’s what we do know:

• The service will cost $9.95 per month.
• It will offer access to a larger back catalog of content.
• It will run on additional devices currently not supported by Hulu, including Apple’s  iPad and potentially Microsoft’s Xbox as well as Sony’s Playstation.
• Hulu’s basic service will remain free for all of its users.

Hulu Plus may also eventually offer access to shows that previously weren’t available on Hulu, with rumors pointing towards negotiations with CBS. Viacom, who just removed all of its content from Hulu a few months ago, also signaled that it was willing to rethink its stance on Hulu if and when the economic model of the site changes.

However, it’s doubtful that any of these potential content partners will be available as part of a launch next week, which will reportedly be rolled out as a closed beta test limited to as few as 10,000 subscribers.

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Sony has been offering HD downloads through the PS3 ever since it launched the Playstation Network’s movie download section almost two years ago. Playstation users also have access to Netflix VOD through a pop-in disc. Sony recently announced plans to extend the download platform to Bravia TVs, Sony PCs and other connected devices. It also plans to extend its new HD line-up to the UK, France, Germany, and Spain soon.

The Playstation Network currently offers access to more than 2,900 movies and 17,800 TV episodes, and over 1000 of the movie titles are available for sale or rent in HD. Sony told us today that it has delivered more than 829 million downloads worldwide since the launch of the Playstation Network, but those numbers also include free and paid-for games and game demos as well as digital comics.

The PS3 may be the first one to get HD content from all six major studios, but it’s not the only one trying to bring HD content to the living room. Sony is squarely competing with Microsoft, which has been busy forging content deals with big and small studios alike for its Xbox Live service. Xbox users have been able to stream videos in 1080p since late last year, and the New York Times reported in January that company is in negotiations to bring live content from Disney and ESPN to the Xbox.

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