Tech
A correction on Amazon Prime Video subscriptions
Correction, April 18, 7:37PM ET: Amazon has disputed Cord Busters‘ report, and confirmed the Prime Video-only plan is still available in the US as a standalone, $8.99 monthly subscription. Users wishing to sign up for the service can navigate here and select Prime Video under ‘Plan.’ The original, incorrect, article follows unedited. We regret the error.
Amazon appears to have nixed its Prime Video-only plan in the US and UK. Cord Busters reports that the little-known subscription, introduced in 2016, is no longer available to new users in either country. Those trying to sign up for the previously $8.99 monthly plan (£5.99 monthly in the UK) are now directed to the landing page for a full Amazon Prime membership.
The Prime Video plan launched eight years ago, priced to undercut Netflix’s (at the time) $9.99-a-month subscription price for standard HD streaming on up to two devices. Although the option stuck around for close to a decade, Amazon increasingly buried it, making it impossible to sign up for on mobile devices. It was also increasingly difficult to find on desktops, where you had to navigate to an easy-to-miss “See more plans” section of the Prime sign-up page.
The Prime Video plan never even got a price increase during that time, further illustrating how obscure Amazon apparently wanted it to remain. Now, it appears to be gone for good. Cord Busters says it was recently removed in the US and axed from Amazon UK earlier this week.
Your subscription should still work if you’re already on the Prime Video-only plan. But if you cancel it or switch to the full Prime membership, don’t expect to see an option to return to it.
Engadget reached out to Amazon to ask about the change. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
Prime Video is home to Fallout, which premiered earlier this month. We found it to be one of the best video game adaptations to date, in the vein of The Last of Us.
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