DivX playback arrives on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360

DivX has announced that Sony's PS3 -- like Microsoft's Xbox 360 -- will now support the company's video format with the 2.10 firmware update, but who will use it?

While not fully certified, DivX says it expects Sony to give the PS3 console a full certification in the future.

By including the DivX profile, Sony adds to the media center qualities of the PS3. Now, users will be able to play HD content on their PS3 without having to investa large sum of money on a Blu-ray burner. DivX has the advantage of being a cheap, and largely open, standard.

But while it appears on the outside as a move by Sony toward providing affordable high-definition video solutions for a wider array of consumers, adding DivX may actually be contributing to the system's appeal to the enthusiast and underground community.

DivX -- and its XviD variant -- is one of the most widely used video formats on the Internet, but there is little commercial content encoded in it. Most DivX use can be found lurking in the dark corners of newsgroups and BitTorrent sites, where television shows and movies are swapped illicitly in mass numbers.

This fact led Microsoft to publicly dispel the notion that it would add DivX to the Xbox 360, however the company changed its mind with its most recent update to the console. The problem for Microsoft is that DivX is supported on almost every DVD player released in the past 5 years, and many of its most vocal customers have been clamoring for it. It also couldn't let Sony have an advantage feature-wise.

The only question is: Will these users play their own DivX-encoded home videos on their PS3 and Xbox 360, or are they going to be downloading pirated XviD movies to watch on their big screen TVs? With only one camcorder -- a Samsung, not a Sony -- currently utilizing DivX, the answer is likely the latter.