Prior to E3 our sources were all in a chatter about Hulu launching a premium service that would include support for the Xbox 360. The premium service will be a $9.99 per month premium subscription-based offering and is now being referred to by our sources as Hulu Plus.

From what we are told by our sources, apparently Hulu has a deal in place with Sony, as well, to add Hulu Plus support to the PlayStation 3 platform. From what we now understand, the deal with Microsoft was pretty much in place, but some foot dragging caused the announcement not to be made at E3 as originally intended.

Apparently, the clock is ticking for Hulu to get the premium service up and running. Whispers suggest that some licensing agreements with some content providers are set to expire in 2011, and Hulu needs to show positive revenue growth and expansion to content providers if they are to stay with Hulu.

Many analysts believe that Hulu Plus could represent the best chance for the company to grab a larger slice of the streaming market while it still is very new and ripe for the picking. Having support for two of the three major console platforms will be quite important going forward when content providers choose who they will partner with.