Sony has criticised Microsoft's just-announced TV and movie download action for Xbox Live Marketplace for requiring a hard drive to take advantage of the service - or in other words, it's not a feature that's available to owners of an Xbox 360 Core system unless they fork out for an HDD.

"PlayStation 3's content is designed for everyone to enjoy right out of the box, no matter which configuration you purchase. We would never segregate or shut out any of our consumers from our entertainment experience because they didn't buy the top of the line system. Both PlayStation 3 versions available on November 17 include hard drives for downloading content," a Sony spokesperson said in a statement appearing on Next-Gen.biz.

We've contacted Microsoft for an official response to this but so far have had nothing back. If we do hear anything, we'll let you know right here.