Sony PlayStation Store will Discontinue Movie and TV Purchases

The ability to purchase movies and TV shows on PlayStation is coming to an end, according to a post made on the PlayStation Blog. This change will not happen immediately, but you may want to prioritize the TV show or movie you had been considering buying and watching on your PlayStation.

The post on the PlayStation Blog was written by Head of Video Business, SIE, Vanessa Lee:

At SIE, we strive to provide the best entertainment experience for PlayStation fans, and that means evolving our offerings as customer needs change. 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 goes into effect, users can still access movies 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.

Variety reported that Sony first launched video rentals and sales in the PlayStation Store in July of 2008, having inked distribution pacts with major studios. According to Variety, Sony is shutting down its digital video store after double-digit growth in the sector in 2020 amid the pandemic. Variety stated that Sony said it is exiting the transactional VOD (video-on-demand) business because it sees more PlayStation users adopting free and subscription streaming-services.

To me, that makes sense. It will be hard for Sony to compete with Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, The Criterion Channel, IMDB TV and more. In my opinion, Sony will do well to stick to video games – especially ones that are exclusive to PS4 or PS5. Diablo II Resurrected will be playable on both of those consoles, and has plenty of fans of the series anxiously awaiting its release.