Why Anime Fans Are Excited About This PlayStation Plus Rumor
Sony just dropped great news for anime fans with its completed acquisition of Crunchyroll, one of the world's biggest anime streaming services. Crunchyroll hosts its own conventions, produces original anime series, and even develops games in the anime industry, which spells business opportunities galore for the company. Sony bought the anime streaming service in a $1.175 billion deal that includes access to the former rival's hundreds of anime shows and millions of subscribers and users.
Tony Vinciquerra, Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO, assured fans of the company's commitment "to creating the ultimate anime experience" and offering unique opportunities to stakeholders. "Our goal is to create a unified anime subscription experience as soon as possible," he said in a press release. His statement suggested a merging of services, though the details are hazy.
Sony still hasn't confirmed how it plans to combine the services or what a linked service would look like, but it did reveal possible plans to add Crunchyroll to PlayStation Plus. According to Eurogamer's sources, this plan would offer Crunchyroll in a more expensive PlayStation Plus subscription. It's unclear if this will be a separate subscription or integrated into the standard subscription. However, Sony's press release also suggested at another unification that could be happening soon.
How a unified streaming service affects fans
Sony hinted at merging Crunchyroll with Funimation, its own anime streaming service, when news of the acquisition first went public. Anime fans on Reddit claimed that Crunchyroll had double the anime series as Funimation, but Funimation had more English dubs and titles more popular with western audiences like "Cowboy Bebop" and "Attack on Titan." The merger likely benefits both companies as a way to reach a wider audience and leverage resources for more projects.
Anime fans hoped for a joint Crunchyroll-Funimation streaming service so that they could have a "best of both worlds" option. Both streaming services currently have exclusive titles that won't necessarily appear on the other. For example, Funimation holds the streaming rights for "Kaguya-sama: Love is War" Season 2, even though the anime aired its first season on Crunchyroll. The rumored PlayStation Plus anime subscription could be a way to further unify company streaming services and raise PlayStation subscription stats in the process.
At the very least, anime fans should consider the more expensive PlayStation Plus subscription if it happens. A Crunchyroll-PlayStation Plus service could be more cost-effective than individual subscriptions for an anime streaming service and separate PlayStation Plus account. Still, it's unclear how much this supposed subscription costs and if it includes enough perks to win over anime-loving PlayStation fans at this time.