If you’re an anime fan, chances are you’ve heard of Crunchyroll, the streaming service that brings the masses in the west a slew of hard-to-access (or outright inaccessible) eastern entertainment. You may have even heard in recent weeks that Crunchyroll will be bringing its service to PlayStation 3. And if you’re curious about this forthcoming app, there’s good news. We’ve been given access to it, and have plenty of information you’ll need leading up to its launch.
For starters, why is Crunchyroll migrating over to PlayStation 3? A lot of it, according to the service’s co-founder and CEO Kun Gao, is because there’s an undeniable “synergy” between the PS3 and the audience that enjoys anime. The company polled their audience and found that 40% of those who responded said they owned a PlayStation 3. That, combined with the fact that PS3 offers more games from Japanese developers (and JRPGs in particular) than its competition makes Crunchyroll on PS3 make a lot of sense. There’s substantial audience crossover.
But how about some specifics concerning the app itself? The Crunchyroll app will be available to download free of charge for all North American PS3 users (specifics regarding its release in other territories are still unknown). It can be initially downloaded from either the XMB (under TV/Video Services) or from the PlayStation Store itself. However, access to the application once downloaded will vary.
Crunchyroll is a service that has both free and premium options ranging over different subscription tiers. This is true on the Crunchyroll website as well as on the many devices that already accommodate the service, ranging from iOS and Android to Roku and Google TV. The same is true for PlayStation 3. While a “comprehensive sample” will be made available for users having a taste of Crunchyroll’s service (such as being able to watch the first episode of a series), a premium membership will be necessary to use all of the application’s functions and see everything it has to offer.
If you’re interested in paying for Crunchyroll, then you’ll have unlimited access to its wares. Since Crunchyroll actually offers more than just anime (in the form of live-action dramas from all over Asia), you could opt to get the anime-only membership for just under $7 a month, with other options for a dramas-only membership, or for tying everything in together. Regardless of what you choose, everything will parlay over ubiquitously to PlayStation 3, and any other applicable device you stream Crunchyroll on.
For premium subscribers, Crunchyroll’s library of over 400 anime series will be available on PlayStation 3, and 34 of those series are “simulcasts,” meaning that they are posted on Crunchyroll only an hour after they first air in Japan, complete with English subtitles. Crunchyroll’s co-founder and CEO Kun Gao told me that his service is “one of the only places where you can watch [these shows] legally,” undoubtedly making it enticing for anime fans who may be using other means to get their fix.
The Crunchyroll application itself on PS3 is easy to use and fairly fluid. In many ways, it resembles Netflix. Users will have access to various menus to make navigating Crunchyroll’s roster of shows easier, boiling things down to submenus showing the service’s most popular shows, shows that are available via “simulcasts,” the most recently posted episodes and more. Obviously, users can make their own queue as well, and that queue can be updated and accessed from any device that supports Crunchyroll. Better yet, if you start watching an anime on your phone, you can pause it, then watch it on your PS3, then pause it again and watch it on your computer, and so on.
Crunchyroll on PS3 currently only supports up to 480p, which Gao explained to me was a fairly standard resolution for anime, as it’s more expensive to produce shows in higher quality. So even at 480p, most anime will be viewable on PS3 in its native resolution, though that will still fluctuate depending on the shows you’re interested in.
The Crunchyroll service will also be coming to PlayStation Vita, though it’s farther away from release than the PS3 iteration of the application. Gao told me that his company is shooting to release Crunchyroll on Vita by the end of the year, and “hopefully sooner.” They want to first be able to use the feedback they get from Crunchyroll on PS3 and make necessary improvements to make the Vita iteration of the application as good as it can be.
The release date for Crunchyroll on PlayStation 3 hasn’t been nailed down yet, but it will be coming to a PS3 near you (in North America only) very soon.
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