YouTube Invades Your Tube

— -- Couch potatoes, rejoice: now you can watch YouTube right in your living room on your big-screen television. YouTube announced its union with Sony and Nintendo to bring YouTube for Television (that's http://www.youtube.com/tv -- a link only accessible via a game console) through the PlayStation 3 and Wii, respectively.

YouTube for Television offers "a dynamic, lean-back, 10-foot television viewing experience" for Internet connected consoles, according to the promos. YouTube has also simplified the experience by enlarging text and streamlining navigation to function better on the Wii and PlayStation 3's built-in Web browsers. Check out the PlayStation 3 walk-through and see how simple it looks to start vegging out in style:

An optional auto-play capability also allows users to view related videos sequentially, just like flicking through cable programs.

This move into the gaming world heralds an era wherein YouTube will be available through a bunch of different devices, just like Netflix has done. During the course of CES 2009, YouTube showed up on new televisions, threatening to become as ubiquitous as Netflix's integration into new tech.

So what's missing? Microsoft's Xbox 360, of course. The number two contender in the console wars is mysteriously absent from YouTube's announcement. Microsoft's one-up in this battle is its acquisition of Netflix before its rivals, but with streaming television being the next big thing, that may not be enough.