Sony will add a new ‘Anime Hub’ to PS5 next year

Being a Japanese company, Sony has always been somewhat closely aligned with the anime industry. With their acquisitions of Funimation and Crunchyroll however, the entertainment giant appears to be going all-in on anime, now announcing that they will launch a new dedicated hub on PlayStation 5 sometime early next year.

As reported by the publication Variety, anime giant Crunchyroll (which was acquired by Sony back in 2021) announced during its inaugural ‘Anime Future Forum’ that the streaming service would be integrating itself more deeply into the PlayStation 5’s OS with a new ‘Anime Hub’.

Said to be launching some time in Spring of next year, this new hub is being “designed to make it easier for the PlayStation community to discover and explore the anime content they enjoy.”

Commenting on this new initiative, Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini stated “Today, we take that partnership with Sony Interactive Entertainment one step further with an anime hub on PlayStation. Serving fans means meeting them where they already are.”

As of now, no exact details have been shared regarding what form this hub will take. Based on the PS5’s current UX, it is safe to assume that the Crunchyroll app will either be more deeply integrated into the console’s Media Tab, or may even wind up getting its own bespoke Tab.

This follows on from another recent move by Sony intended to further synergise its services, announcing back in late August that they had launched a new ‘Live TV on PS5’ app; allowing those in the US to access 100+ live channels for free.

Since the console’s launch back in 2020, the PS5 has had pretty much all of the main streaming services one would expect. That said, for a company so deeply rooted in film and TV, their media efforts on PS5 have been somewhat barebones. Hopefully this new Crunchyroll Anime hub proves to be a welcome addition – and doesn’t wind up being just another way for Sony to force ads into the OS. We will have to wait and see when it officially launches in Spring.

KitGuru says: What do you think of this new initiative? Does it have the potential to be useful? Do you care about anime? Let us know down below.

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