Sony Entertainment has announced that it will close its television streaming service Playstation Vue in January. The service was one of the early streaming services when it started in 2015 but never seemed to get much traction at present only has 500,000 customers.
I have subscribed to PlayStation Vue in the past and in many ways it was the closest to traditional cable television that it aimed to replace. The service was easy to use and had a very good unlimited dvr service although items deleted after 30 days.
There were several issues with PlayStation Vue from the start including poor marketing but one of the biggest issues was always the name itself; Because the name was PlayStation Vue most people presumed it just worked on your ps4 even though the service was available on just about any computer, tablet or streaming box.
The cost of programming also was an issue for PlayStation Vue as competitors such as AT&T owned their own content and channels so they were able to negotiate for better pricing. The customer base is small compared with their competitors which left them at a disadvantage when they tried to compete. The market is very competitive with Apple Plus which just debuted and Disney Plus coming soon as well as HBO Max coming next year so maybe its a good time for Playstation Vue to close.
In recent days there were stories that Sony tried to sell Playstation Vue but it all comes down to content and content deals without out much content yourself or large subscriber numbers to negotiate good deals it leaves you in a tough position. I will miss Playstation Vue which was a very good service but in an ever more competitive marketplace they won’t be the last streaming service to close.
(Courtesy The Last Privateer.com)