To better incentivize PlayStation owners into subscribing to PS Plus, Sony announced today that certain subscription holders get access to a curated catalog of ad-free movies they can watch on their PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
In a new PS Blog post, Sony announced that the new feature is part of a rebranding for its movie service Bravia Core, which will be renamed Sony Pictures Core. If you are unfamiliar with Bravia Core, it's a movie service Sony launched in early 2021 that was limited in availability as it was only on Bravia TVs and certain Experia devices.
This new collaboration lets PS4 and PS5 owners buy or rent up to 2,000 movies they can then watch directly from their console, including films such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Uncharted, The Equalizer, No Hard Feelings, Bullet Train, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, among others.
You’ll be able to buy select Sony Pictures films during an exclusive, early access window. The first of these in select markets such as the UK, France, Germany, and Japan is the recently released movie Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story. Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story is currently available through Sony Pictures Core in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
More interestingly, the new partnership also lets PlayStation Plus Premium and Deluxe members access a catalog of up to 100 movies through the Sony Pictures Core app as one of their new membership perks; all the movies available to these members are streamed ad-free, and the catalog of movies will be updated periodically. Some films subscribers will have access to include Resident Evil Damnation, Elysium, and Kingsguard: Final Fantasy 15.
Sony also pledged to expand on the offerings and perks that come with Sony Pictures Core, noting a selection of anime content from Crunchyroll, which Sony acquired in late 2020 for $1.175 billion, and teasing additional perks for all PlayStation Plus members will be shared at a later date.
The announcement is no surprise for those who closely follow PlayStation or its parent company. In early 2021, Sony began testing out a service called PlayStation Plus Video Pass in Poland that let PlayStation Plus subscribers stream movies and TV shows. And just last year, Sony did a significant overhaul to PlayStation Plus, dividing the service into multiple tiers, offering new perks such as the option to play retro games that were released on previous PlayStation consoles and access to time-trials of some games if you opted to subscribe to the Premium membership tier.
Sony Pictures Core is available in 23 markets globally starting today with the app available to download in the Media section on PS5, while PS4 users need to head to the PS Store to download the app.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/playstation-plus-premiumdeluxe-adds-movies-via-new-sony-pictures-core-app