It’s not just games you’ll be able to play on your PS5 at launch, with a raft of streaming services available on day one, including Apple’s rather more curated Apple TV+ service.
It’s just under 3 weeks before folks lucky enough to snap up a PS5 pre-order (if it hasn’t been delayed) will be able to unwrap and install their shiny new gaming consoles, but they won’t just be capable of playing games.
You can’t play games all the time, though, and I’m not saying that because I’m your dad. No, really, I checked and I’m not (unless my actual kids are reading this, in which case, that dishwasher isn’t going to unpack itself.)
While the industry’s efforts to make home gaming consoles the centre of family entertainment have had their bumps and weird spots – is anyone still using an Xbox One Digital TV Tuner? – the reality of 2020 is that it would be pretty strange if the PS5 didn’t support a wide array of streaming services out of the box.
Just as the PS4 has offered up a wide range of streaming services for those times when those peksy other folks in your house want to binge watch something, the PS5 will also offer up the usual suspects for streaming goodness.
In a blog post, Sony’s Phil Rosenberg has detailed which services should be available on day one, and the predictable candidates are all there, including Netflix, Disney+, YouTube and Twitch, as well as Apple TV, which is fresh and new to the PlayStation platform. Apple TV will sit within the PS5’s media space alongside other streaming apps.
It’s not just PS5 owners who will be able to binge the rather excellent Mythic Quest, as Apple TV is also going to appear on the PS4 as an app options as well.
Apple TV can have somewhat confusing branding if you’re not familiar with it, as it’s effectively the name for Apple’s set top boxes, but also its store for selling and renting third party content, while Apple TV+ is its own subscription streaming service with monthly fees.
To date an awful lot of Apple device owners have been getting the service for nothing, and Apple even recently announced that it’s extending its original year-long trial until February 2021 for most users.
Apple is rather infamous for its “walled garden” approach to content, locking down specific games on Apple Arcade for example, but for its nascent streaming service, it’s gone rather wider than many might have expected. Naturally enough it works on iPhones, iPads and the Apple TV set top box, but it’s also available on a range of smart TVs and even Amazon’s ultra-cheap Fire TV Stick Lite.
Leave a Reply