PlayStation TV Won’t Support PlayStation Vue

by Sohrab Osati | Mar 19, 2015 | 1 comment
Sohrab Osati

PlayStation_TV_1

In a move that only Sony/PlayStation could pull off, PlayStation TV, the companion device which allows you to stream PS4 games, and play PlayStation Vita games on your television will not support PlayStation Vue, the streaming TV service from Sony. Yes, PlayStation TV won’t support Sony’s PlayStation television streaming initiative. After you’re done shaking your head, meet us after the jump for some more head shaking.

PlayStation_Vue_3The writing, for the most part, has been on the wall. PlayStation TV had a chance to be the Trojan horse from Sony to bring PlayStation to a wider audience, thanks to the built-in PlayStation Now functionality but from launch, things seemed off. There would be no Neftlix or Hulu support and once Sony did finally announce HBO GO on PS4, there was no news about the service coming to PlayStation TV. Now with news about PlayStation Vue coming to PS3, PS4, and iPad, it leaves little for imagination that Sony likely already sees their connected box as a dead device.

With PlayStation TV being able to stream PS4 games, it’s unlikely this has anything to do with hardware limitations. After all, everything PlayStation Vue does is based on the cloud, including saving recorded shows. Instead, Sony wrongly sees this as an opportunity to sell more PS3 and PS4 units while knowing how influential the iPad market is. So instead of having users in mind who could simply purchase a $100 $66 device, Sony would rather push them a $200 (PS3) or $400 (PS4) device. While PlayStation Vue seems like a powerful new tool and ally for cord cutters, due to its limited reach of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, it’s not as if Sony is rolling this service out with scale.

This means that the target audience is already small and Sony will only be able to gradually roll out the service which doesn’t make it the next hot thing. That alone will mean less people will suddenly want to and can jump onboard the service and reduces the immediacy to try the service which might justify purchasing a more expensive console. Even worse, those who can have the service must own multiple consoles in a household if they want to access the service on multiple televisions.

All of this, of course, could be solved by allowing the PlayStation TV to support PlayStation Vue, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Here is hoping to that Sony will roll out some major update to PlayStation TV come E3, including a major UI revamp and app support for services like PlayStation Vue, Netflix, HBO GO, and Hulu to name a few.

Discuss:

Are you surprised that PlayStation TV won’t support PlayStation Vue?

[Via The Verge]