Alongside the announcement of the Apple TV 4K, Apple revealed that it would be upgrading its customers' HD digital movie purchases from iTunes to UHD quality at no additional cost. This is something that's been missing from Google Play Movies & TV for quite some time, but it looks like that's starting to change.
You've been able to be purchase UHD movies on Google Play for a while now, but they've always featured a considerably higher cost of $29.99 compared to the $19.99 price for most HD titles. However, if you take a quick look through Google Play Movies & TV's current catalog of feature films, you'll see that some changes are being made.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is one of the first titles to pop up when opening the Google Play Movies app, and when tapping on it to view the available purchase options, you'll see that you only have two available — The SD version for $14.99 and the UHD variant for $19.99. In another example, the amazing Baby Driver can be purchased in HD for $14.99 and UHD for $19.99.
This is undoubtedly a big step in the right direction, but these changes aren't appearing all across the board. Titles like Wonder Woman and Transformers: The Last Knight still cost $29.99 for their UHD versions, and from what we can tell, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the changes that have been made so far — though it could come down to a per-studio deal.
Cheaper UHD titles are something you won't ever hear me complaining about, but this is only half of the battle for Google. For folks that have already built up extensive digital libraries, having that content upgraded to the highest available quality possible is still essential — especially if people can now purchase those same titles at the same price but in a higher resolution.
