
Sony to Shut Down PlayStation Vue - hhs
https://blog.us.playstation.com/2019/10/29/sony-interactive-entertainment-to-shut-down-playstation-vue/
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michannne
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.

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fooey
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

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shepardrtc
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.

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MaximumMadness
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

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brian_herman__
Yeah xbox game pass for pc is great Outer Worlds for a starting subscription
of one dollar!

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Phillips126
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).

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ascagnel_
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.

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Phillips126
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.

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bdcravens
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.

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windexh8er
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.

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Phillips126
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.

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house9-2
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.

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larrydag
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.

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lazerpants
Such a bummer. Vue was the most expensive but certainly best of the online
cable bundles if you wanted to get as much content as possible.

