Crime drama “Powers” — adapted from the popular comic of the same name by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Michael Avon Oeming, and starring Sharlto Copley, Eddie Izzard and Michelle Forbes — is a new PlayStation original series. The show is available exclusively on Sony’s PlayStation Network, and can be viewed only via the PlayStation game console and select Xperia phones and Bravia TVs. The series will be an interesting test subject in brand convergence between Sony Pictures and the company’s PlayStation division.

When a “Powers” pilot was in limbo at FX, Sony approached Bendis about a PlayStation Network option. And when FX passed in 2012, Sony gave the greenlight to a complete season. Fifteen years after the first published issue of “Powers,” the series is now a reality.

John Koller, Sony VP of platforms marketing, sees such programming as a way to “supplement gaming” for the company.

According to Wired, “trying to determine what would make ‘Powers’ a success or failure leads into a thicket of buzzwords — ‘we want to incent PlayStation Plus adoption,’ Koller says, but also create ‘sentiment among gamers.’ After all, ‘positive sentiment about PlayStation the brand as well as about what Powers offers to them as members of PlayStation,’ he says, ‘is very critical to how we’re doing this.’ Above all, Sony is concerned with ‘how the brand lives in their heart.’”

The PlayStation original series premiered March 10. The pilot episode of “Powers” is available for free viewing on YouTube.