Amazon has killed off the anime streaming platform it launched merely a year ago, according to Kotaku, and we’re not exactly surprised. Anime Strike required an additional $ 5 a month on top of Prime Video membership fees, after all, which might have been a bit too much for subscribers already paying $ 99 a year. Amazon has already incorporated its shows into Prime Video — yes, including its exclusives — and we’ll bet a lot of people would say that that should’ve been the case from the start.
Strike had exclusives (such as Inuyashiki and Re:CREATORS) you couldn’t find on Crunchyroll and Funimation, but they clearly weren’t enough to convince people to sign up. Fans likely spent their five bucks a month on a Crunchyroll subscription, which had more titles to offer, instead. It also didn’t help that Strike was only available in the US, thereby limiting its potential audience.
Amazon told Kotaku that it has decided to “move the curated catalogs of Anime Strike” to Prime Video “so that more customers can enjoy this content as part of their Prime membership.” It’s unclear if Channels, as paid add-ons on top of Prime Video, aren’t doing well as a whole or if some of them simply can’t get enough subscriptions to continue. Either way, Anime Strike isn’t alone: Amazon has also dissolved its Bollywood platform Heera and has made its shows and movies available on its video streaming platform.
Source: Kotaku
