PlayStation Store to Stop Selling and Renting Movies and TV Shows on August 31 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 March 2021 / 1,660 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment announced will stop selling and renting movies and TV shows on August 31.
"At SIE, we strive to provide the best entertainment experience for PlayStation fans, and that means evolving our offerings as customer needs change," said SIE head of video business Vanessa Lee.
"We’ve seen tremendous growth from PlayStation fans using subscription-based and ad-based entertainment streaming services on our consoles. With this shift in customer behavior, we have decided to no longer offer movie and TV purchases and rentals through PlayStation Store as of August 31, 2021.
"When this change takes effect, users can still access movie and TV content they have purchased through PlayStation Store for on-demand playback on their PS4, PS5 and mobile devices. We thank our fans for their continued support, and we look forward to further enhancing the entertainment experience on PlayStation."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Makes sense to remove a service that isn't getting much revenue anyway and clean up the store freeing space for things that bring more money.
Never bought or rented any media from PSN.
They are a business, and like any business, they will cut off dead branches. No complaints here.
I would have thought this was a move to release their own streaming service.
They have crunchyroll and funimation. Perhaps they will have some movie/series/show streaming service in the near future but weren't ready to disclose.
Crunchyroll and funimation serve a niche, but not enough to scale up to compete with the big dogs. Netflix is ramping up its anime content and licensing so Sony would be wise to protect that space as opposed to try to compete in a space they are likely to fail.
"You will own nothing and you will be happy"
Come on sony, why be greedy like that and not offer more variety.
Greedy? They’re shutting down a service that allowed them to sell and rent videos...
How is that greed?
because consumers had more choice. Now they'd rather we just pay for a service and subscription and such. The good thing about rentals is you pick and choose what you want and have a day or 2 to watch it.
Or they can just rent the same movies/shows off VUDU or Amazon for the same price, and have the purchases carry over to every other platform as well?
I always saw buying movies and shows on XBox or PS as worthless, since then they are tied to the platform. Using one of the supported apps to do the exact same thing has always been the better option, so I don't see how this is in any way Sony being greedy.
And to be fair, if you want to argue subs to netflix or hulu, that doesn't make sense either. As the lions share of any profit gained would go to Netflix, Hulu, or whoever the service provider is. The reference to streaming services simply means people are not renting or buying movies like they used to, and it now costs them more money to keep the service open than they are making from it. Movie and TV licenses are not exactly cheap. So rather than "being greedy", it is more like they trimming the fat.
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