Sony needs to reconsider it's position in the entertainment market. It's convenient to have a BD player bundled in a console, but I don't buy it because of that, nor do I buy it to watch TV, though if it can do that too, even better.
Being that console parts are particularly cheaper than their PC equivalents, I think they'd make a lot more money focusing on their game management services. PS Now wasn't very good and caps out with respect to a user's internet capability, but the idea of 'leasing' games online could be severely improved. Another avenue could be revising and improving their hypervisor and their SDK to the point where they can confidently open up a homebrew app market. And release a playstation emulator or something similar that enables me to access any of my PS4 Sony-approved, online-verified and signed titles from my PC, provided I'm connected to my PS4 (not online) at all times. These incentives will make me want a Ps4, but don't add any incentives for me to use cracking software, but require effort on Sony's part to build up their security, and focus more on revenue generation than profit generation, so that cracking becomes largely pointless.
My PS4 has basically never been used for anything except watching Vue. Now, my PS4 has zero broadcast TV options since they don't support anyone else like YoutubeTV
I've been subscribed to Vue for a couple years now and I love it. Is there going to be any sort of replacement for it on the PS4? I'm not going to buy individual tv episodes through the PlayStation store or Prime video or whatever, and if they think people will do that, they're out of their damn minds.
It's a bummer no doubt, but not surprising. Both Playstation and Xbox spent considerable resources turning both devices into "entertainment centers"
The result for Xbox was a cluttered UI that disincentivized playing games, and the result for Playstation was poorly utilized services that cost too much.
The one benefit of it all is that games seems to be coming back to the forefront of both platforms, so they can get back to doing what they do best
Playstation Vue was their TV service (not to be confused with Playstation Now - their game streaming service which is comparable to Xbox Game Pass).
Their TV service if I can recall started at $40/mo for their basic subscription. Their game streaming service was $20/mo but was dropped to $10/mo earlier this month. To compare Xbox Game Pass is currently $10/mo. The difference is (correct me if I'm wrong) PS Now _streamed_ the games whereas Xbox downloads them. PS Now seemed to focus more on older titles where Xbox Game Pass is heavily indie games with a few newer AAA releases mixed in.
Xbox certainly provides a lot of value for the $1.00 entry into the Game Pass with their current sale (provides games for both Xbox and PC).
PSNow now does both — it’ll stream PS3 games (since emulating that chip is a tall order; if we’re lucky, the PS5 or PS6 will be capable of doing so), but there’s a subset of PS4 games that can be downloaded and played on-console.
Interesting. Thanks for clearing that up. I used to be subscribed and did play a number of games but ended up cancelling my PS Now subscription. Now my Playstation is saying I need to fix the OS with a flash drive which I've been meaning to do but life is busy.
That's disappointing. We've used them for some time. Even though it was far from the cheapest streaming option, they seemed to have the best set of channels.
Agreed. I'm in the same boat and have been a happy Vue subscriber for a couple years now. With regard to Vue being "far from the cheapest" I'd argue Sony offers a far more compelling service for the money. Everyone else has janky "DVR" pricing. For example Hulu charges you for "enhanced" DVR which gives you 200 hours and adds in the capability to fast-forward. Really? We all know there's no such thing as cloud "DVR" so the hourly limit imposed is just a ridiculous upsell strategy for something every service is storing everything already and just playing it on demand. But Sony did it the right way. Unlimited DVR but you could only save a recorded program for a specific amount of time. And they don't upsell you into fast-forward or streaming on more than 2 devices simultaneously (I believe Sony allowed 5 which is way more than I need but also far more reasonable). I'm not the biggest fan of Sony but the service only had two outages I experienced. Anyway... RIP Sony Vue. Now I'm stuck finding another service that works well across a few different platforms again.
I was at one point subscribed to Playstation Vue when I was determining what alternatives were viable after canceling my cable subscription. I remember it being a bit meh. The channels were decent but I was not a fan of the UI/UX. Also in the end $40/mo was quite steep for something we rarely used to begin with so we dropped it and continue to just use Netflix/Hulu for watching TV/Movies.
I wonder if their problem was with branding? I have never owned a PlayStation so when I first heard about it I didn't realize I could use it on other devices.
This is the main way I currently watch sports. Now time to look for alternatives, nothing else had everything I wanted in a 'reasonably' priced package.
Ability to add sports package during NFL season (RedZone!) was nice.
Not surprising. Sony's core competency is hardware. I believe they thought it would drive more sales of PSs and TVs. I'm not sure that panned out. Without content driving subscriptions it probably isn't a profit driver.
I've heard good reviews of it though. Surprised they didn't try to sell it.
Being that console parts are particularly cheaper than their PC equivalents, I think they'd make a lot more money focusing on their game management services. PS Now wasn't very good and caps out with respect to a user's internet capability, but the idea of 'leasing' games online could be severely improved. Another avenue could be revising and improving their hypervisor and their SDK to the point where they can confidently open up a homebrew app market. And release a playstation emulator or something similar that enables me to access any of my PS4 Sony-approved, online-verified and signed titles from my PC, provided I'm connected to my PS4 (not online) at all times. These incentives will make me want a Ps4, but don't add any incentives for me to use cracking software, but require effort on Sony's part to build up their security, and focus more on revenue generation than profit generation, so that cracking becomes largely pointless.