As more and more companies prepare to go after the on-demand video market, one company has decided to waive the white flag and surrender.
PlayStation Vue
Sony traces its roots back to 1946, but it wasn’t until 1958 that the company officially became known as Sony. While the company has had its rough patches, Sony helped pioneer devices like transistor radios and tape players, although in more recent years it’s probably known for the PlayStation video game consoles and home TV/audio equipment. Its various entertainment divisions and subsidiaries include owning rights to movie franchises like Spider-man, TV shows like Jeopardy, and much of The Beatles’ music catalog.
In early 2014, Sony revealed one of its latest projects: a TV service in the cloud that would offer both live and on-demand programming along with a DVR service. The name was later revealed to be PlayStation Vue, and it went live in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia on March 18, 2015 for its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles. Later that year, it expanded to more markets and devices, but it wasn’t until March 2016 that it went nationwide.
Like most TV and streaming services, there have been various shuffling of offerings and price increases. The initial base package was $49.99 a month, but the nationwide launch also debuted a cheaper package with less channels for $29.99 a month. However, the price also varied by the user’s location (billing address).
As of October 2019, PlayStation Vue costs range from the $49.99 Access plan to the $84.99 a month Ultra plan. All options include local channels (if available), AT&T content like CNN, Disney offerings like ESPN, and AMC. No packages include Viacom channels which include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central.
On October 29th, Sony announced they were shutting down PlayStation Vue in early 2020. In a post on the PlayStation blog, the deputy president of Sony Interactive Entertainment wrote:
“Today we are announcing that we will shut down the PlayStation Vue service on January 30, 2020. Unfortunately, the highly competitive Pay TV industry, with expensive content and network deals, has been slower to change than we expected. Because of this, we have decided to remain focused on our core gaming business.”
What Went Wrong?
It has been no secret the service hadn’t been doing well for a while. In May 2019, eMarketer estimated PS Vue had 800,000 subscribers, second to last in its list. A more recent report had it pegged around 500,000.
So why did it have so few subscriptions? Two of the most logical answers would be either a subpar product or a bad time to debut.
Well, it certainly wasn’t the latter. Sling TV debuted around the same time (early 2015, although nationwide), and they have about 2.4 million according to that same May 2019 eMarketer analysis.
As for the actual service, despite its low number of subscribers, it got a lot of praise. In May 2019, PlayStation Vue received the highest ratings among the live streaming services. PCMag gave it a 4/5 Excellent rating. CNet said “it does lack some channels that others offer, but in day-to-day use I like it better than most”, and Tom’s Guide called it “very close to being a cable killer”. Reviews.com was more tepid but pointed out it’s especially good for sports fans. One firm also called PlayStation Vue “an industry leader” because of its stream’s low rebuff rate.
A major problem was repeatedly pointed out by fans and news outlets: the name. “PlayStation Vue” sounds like you need a PlayStation console to view the content. Perhaps they should have called themselves “Sony Vue” or have gone simply with “Vue”.
As for other issues, in May 2018, TechHive did a good job of explaining why PlayStation Vue’s acceptance rate was so low among cord cutters and on-demand fans. As the article explained, “Sony squandered its first-mover advantage with weak marketing and a late commitment to local channel coverage”, and plus programming costs were rising and Sony had no ad revenue to help offset that.
There were more recent signs the writing was on the wall as well. As announced in May 2019, Sony is looking at using Microsoft servers for its game streaming content. Prices rose in July. In August, Sony stopped paying affiliates for referring people to PlayStation Vue. Then, The Information reported in an October 24th article that Sony was trying to sell PlayStation Vue. Chances are that this news was leaked because Sony had officially decided to shut down the platform. I guess even though Vue had features like picture-in-picture that were ahead of its competitors, all the current and upcoming major streaming providers didn’t need their tech or subscriber list.
Still, though, Sony renewed an agreement with Disney just this September, the same time as Spider-man was confirmed to remain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is somewhat odd that Sony wouldn’t just end distributing Disney Channel and ESPN if they were going to shut down Vue. Maybe they either thought this would entice a buyer or they knew fans would be outraged if they couldn’t get their sports until the very end. But fans of programming on Hallmark Channel and perhaps others may disappear before January.
The Future Post-Vue
In the Great Streaming Wars, how can others avoid PlayStation Vue’s fate in the Great Streaming Wars?
I don’t see some of the mistakes Sony made being repeated. All the companies are going to be promoting the heck out of their services, especially before launch in hopes that people will become addicted and/or too lazy. But AT&T is going to confuse some people with HBO Max vs HBO Now vs HBO Go. So I could see some people saying, “I’ve gone without HBO for years, why would I want it now?” not realizing there’s a whole bunch of new, exclusive stuff and old favorites.
Sony still has some streaming thanks to Crackle, in which it sold its majority stake to Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment (yes, the company behind the books), and, of course, Funimation, which is expanding around the world. But it seems like the company is going to let others battle it out for now while it licenses much of its library to outlets like Netflix. With less than 1 million customers, not too many people are going to be affected, but it seems like Sony was on the right track in regards to its player and getting ahead of offerings like AT&T’s DirecTV Now. But as the Great Streaming Wars heat up, more and more people are finding it better and easier to watch whatever they want instead of being restricted to whatever’s playing. I doubt Sony will stay out forever — it has too many licenses and properties to not try to take a piece of the pie — but it’s going to have to do a lot better the second time around if PlayStation Vue fell even before the launch of Disney+, HBO Max, and other services.