Sony is reportedly planning a big upgrade to PlayStation Plus on PS4 and PS5, but it’s going to cost PS Plus subscribers who want to revel with this upgrade. We first heard all the way back in April, via a report from a prominent industry leaker, that Sony was looking to merge its growing anime empire with its PlayStation empire, via PlayStation Plus. At the time, this rumored service was pitched as PlayStation’s answer to Xbox Game Pass. Now, a few months, later, following this week’s Crunchyroll news, a new report has surfaced echoing all of this. If it’s accurate, a premium version of the subscription service is going to be rolled out soon.
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Last night, Sony finalized the acquisition of Crunchyroll. In the world of anime, this is huge news. For gaming, it doesn’t mean a thing, at least not on the surface level. At the time of the deal being finalized, Sony noted its goal is to create a “unified” subscription service between Funimation and Crunchyroll. What does this have to do with gaming and PlayStation Plus? Well, according to Eurogamer, Sony is potentially planning to bundle Crunchyroll with PlayStation Plus as a premium version of PlayStation Plus, which, currently, already costs $60 a year.
Now, at the time of the original report, it was suggested not only that this was happening, but that the bundle may also include movies and TV. The leaker, Nick Baker, compared the subscription service to Apple One.
For now, it remains to be seen if anything will come of this. Eurogamer’s report itself uses “potentially.” That said, more and more smoke is forming, and where there’s smoke there’s usually fire.
At the moment of publishing, Sony has not commented on any of this in any capacity. Typically, Sony doesn’t comment on rumors, reports, leaks, or speculation, so we don’t expect this to change, but if for some reason it does, we will be sure to update the story accordingly. In the meantime, take everything here with a grain of salt.
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