Since the advent of gaming
systems with online digital services, Sony has been among the companies at the
forefront of this development. They did launch their PlayStation Network
digital service in time with the introduction of their PS3 console, and the
online platform expanded with every succeeding version of the PlayStation, as
well as derivatives like the PSP and Vita. Like their rival/contemporary
Microsoft and their Xbox Live, Sony has a paid subscription service on PSN to
avail of premium features, the PlayStation Plus tier. And recently the PS
Network leaked a new perk for PlayStation Plus subscribers: streaming movies.
Forbes has it that Sony may have a value-added feature for their
premium-tier PlayStation Plus service on the PSN, one that will remind PS4 and
PS5 users that their console’s creator, Sony, is also an international media
provider. This feature probably is not yet ready to be announced; all the same,
word of the new “PlayStation Plus Video Pass” started going around after the official
Sony PlayStation website for Poland briefly posted a page promoting the feature
on Wednesday, April 21…then removed it. Keeping the thing secret seems
difficult considering when this Video Pass is supposed to launch in Poland.
The page information described
PlayStation Plus Video Pass as a limited-time new benefit for subscribers of
that tier on PlayStation Network. Beginning on April 22 this year until the
same day in 2022, this trial service will enable PS Plus subscribers to watch a
selected library of films on digital streaming. The Polish PS page even showed
banners of sample movies that can be seen on Video Pass, all of them
productions of Sony Pictures: 2018’s “Venom,” 2019’s “Zombieland: Double Tap”
and last year’s “Bloodshot.” It seems safe to say that Sony Pictures and its
studios will be providing the content for Video Pass in the year of its
implementation.
Sony’s idea of a Video Pass for
their PlayStation Plus subscription service looks to be their idea to counter
Xbox Game Pass, the so-called “Netflix for Videogames” that Microsoft launched
for multiple platforms: not just their Xbox One and new Xbox Series X/S, but
also Microsoft Windows 10 and XCloud on Android. Sony Interactive Entertainment
president Jim Ryan mentioned such a move on PlayStation Plus last 2020, so
perhaps this is the plan, close to launch. Perhaps more information will be
shared by Sony Interactive soon, now that the internet is in the know too.
Image courtesy of Game Rant
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