PS3 PlayTV due September 10th

SCEE president David Reeves has confirmed that Sony’s highly anticipated Freeview TV add-on PlayTV will launch in the UK on September 10th, and will roll out to the rest of Europe by the end of December.

PlayTV turns a PS3 into a fully-functional PVR – a device that allows users to not only watch Freeview digital TV through their console but also record programming on the hard drive.

It was also confirmed that ability to record TV whilst playing games has been successfully introduced – something that was lacking when PlayTV was put through its paces by the BBC in February.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Reeves stated: It was very difficult for some of the techguys but we had to include it in the firmware upgrade 2.41, but it’s done now.”

Sony had previously pegged the device at €99, with Amazon claiming this translated to 59.99 in the UK, though no new pricing information has been confirmed at this time.

The announcement ties in nicely with Sony’s new movie download service for PS3 and PSP, though there’s no word yet on when that will arrive in Europe.