During RIM’s Q2 conference call tonight, Mike Lazaridis talked up an update to the BlackBerry PlayBook, which will include a new Video Store. It will offer around 10,000 movies and TV shows for rent or sale, often available on the same day as DVD releases. RIM moving into selling movies isn’t a huge surprise, considering they’ve already struck up a partnership with 7digital to sell music on the PlayBook. The tablet handles high-res video very well, and HDMI-out makes it viable for watching on a home TV (though some DLNA support to stream media wirelessly would make the process a bit less painful).
The BlackBerry PlayBook 2.0 update will include other long-promised features, like stand-alone native e-mail and productivity apps, the Android App Player, BlackBerry Balance compatibility, some smaller improvements to Bridge and the browser, as well as some more mysterious additions, such as major media, gaming, and prodctivity additions.
We should be getting our first look at the BlackBerry Video store and PlayBook 2.0 at DevCon next month, with a public release shortly thereafter.