Breaking: Google Play Movies for purchase in Australia, the Playground is opening up?

Update: Google makes it official!

We’ve recently added a ton of great new entertainment to Google Play, such as movies and TV shows from Twentieth Century Fox. Earlier this year we expanded our service beyond movie rentals and now you can purchase movies and build a library of your favorites in Google Play.

Wow, great news is breaking right now. It appears as though Google has very quietly opened up Google Play Movie purchases right here in Australia. We heard word on Google+, thanks to +Keith Meure, that certain Google Play titles in Australia are now up for not only rental, but actual purchase!

Things are not 100% just yet. Some titles appear as for-sale on Android devices, while they’re still only for rental on the desktop version of Google Play. For example, Marvel’s The Avengers is currently for sale on Android devices, but the purchase button has not yet popped up on the full desktop version. The same is also occuring with Safe and Paranormal Activity.

Google is yet to make this announcement official, but I’m guessing that the roll-out has happened as a mistake and was supposed to coincide with the Android event tonight that was subsequently cancelled due to inclement conditions.

Is this the start of Google’s ominous Google Play store opening up for Australians? This could be a slip up and was never meant to happen, but that is highly unlikely and it looks like we’ll now be treated to some lovely full purchases. Other titles that have made the cut (which we’ve discovered) are Van Damme, The Replicant and others. Depending on the age of the movie, pricing will vary. For newer titles like the Avenger we’ve found the SD version to come up at $24.99 and the HD variant at $29.99. Would you purchase a movie from Google Play?

Update: Google has also recently given Australians with access to Google Play Music (if you signed up during the invitation stage or via VPN) the ability to ‘share’ music to their G+ stream. This was never an option until it was discovered a few days ago by +Jamez Frondeskias on Google+, which I later confirmed. This does not guarantee anything that Google Music will be launching in Australia, but it’s just another small step to what we hope is an inevitable outcome.

We can only hope that this marks the start of Google Play’s opening to our shores. This has a major coincidence with Google’s Android event (which was meant to occur tonight). I assume that they were going to announce this as the event (even though it’s just for Australia – perhaps other countries are involved?) and they have subsequently not been able to. We’ve reached out to Google Australia (who has no post about this on their blog) and will update the piece when we hear more.

Are you having the same success on Google Play Movies? Let us know in the comments below!

Thanks: Keith!

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