After the launch of the PlayStation 4, it seemed clear that Sony was making a move away from the console being a media centre, and focusing more on gaming. Fair enough, right? It’s made for gaming, with a few additional nice-to-haves. The case doesn’t seem the same for the PlayStation 5, however.

Thing is, you can still stream Netflix and a variety of other platforms on your PS4. Luckily, for those that have secured a pre-order for the upcoming PlayStation 5 console, it looks like it’ll launch with streaming services pre-loaded. In a blog post published this week, Sony has confirmed that the next-gen console will launch with a few popular streaming apps.

Control your PS5

According to the blog post, the PS5 will come pre-loaded with the likes of Netflix, Apple TV Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus (cries in South Africa), Hulu (cries again), Peacock (what?), Spotify, Twitch and YouTube. All of this means that you’ll be adequately entertained whenever you’re not blasting through a next-gen game.

Some streaming offerings won’t be available on the console come launch, notably HBO Max, but it doesn’t really affect South African consumers. One thing we will get, however, is the anime streaming service Crunchyroll which is ironically owned by HBO. If it works, it works, we guess. This was confirmed by a spokesperson who spoke to The Verge.

An interesting addition to this generation is a media remote that users will be able to purchase post-launch. It’s called the PS5 media remote and will have dedicated buttons for Netflix, Disney Plus and Spotify. Might as well remap that Disney Plus button as SA will probably only get access to that service in ten years at the current rate of expansion

We also don’t have confirmation of the remote coming to South Africa just yet, but once we do, we’ll update. The PS5 will launch in just a few weeks on 19 November 2020. Hope you’ve got that pre-order in.