Playstation TV Dies All Over Again

PlayStation TV was supposed to combine cord cutter passions: online video content and video games. Sony has now, again, insured it will fail on both accounts.

Sony will not be providing their Vue tv service to Playstation TV owners

Sony launched its first foray into online TV with PlayStation Vue in 3 markets today. It is expensive. It seems pretty cool though, right? Surely, if you have a device that carries the PlayStation brand and is quite possibly related to TV it should be able to stream the service, right? Would that make complete and total sense? Not to Sony.

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PlayStation Vue as a service is only outlined to be coming to three devices: Playstation 3, Playstation 4, and in the future, iPad. With this news, Sony has made one thing clear: you should under no circumstances buy a PlayStation TV and they do not care if you were to buy one. This is disappointing news for a number of reasons, but even more, this is just more depressing news for anyone who bought a Playstation TV.

Sony launched the Playstation TV in Japan initially under the PS Vita TV title. It did poorly. So when Sony announced they would be bringing the hardware over to North America, with our gluttonous diet of online tv and video game content, it seemed as if the device might be able to take off. Instead, it launched without a compatible Netflix app. Plex, a popular media server solution, also does not support Playstation TV. Additionally, the system could not support a number of big-name PS Vita games and was really only valuable as an extension of your PS4. Now, Playstation TV does not even support a PlayStation-branded TV service. This is laughable.

Here is a list of channels you won’t get on PlayStation TV

Sony manufactured a device that fails as a media device and as a Playstation gaming device. With every new announcement for Sony restructuring as a brand around Playstation, Playstation TV is Oliver asking for more porridge and not only being denied, but being told what the five fingers said to the face. A puzzling failure since Sony is so adamantly going after the set top box crowd, but are currently unwilling to offer lower priced entry points into their services outside of the PlayStation 3. A failure they continue to sell on shelves despite giving up on it (and let’s be honest, they gave up on it about a month into the system if we are being kind).

Do not buy a Playstation TV. If you want to play PS4 in another room in your house and play PS Vita games, buy a PS Vita. If you think Playstation Now is cool? Buy any other Playstation device or wait for it to hit mobile or a Sony or Samsung TV. Under no circumstances should you buy a Playstation TV. In all of the cash grabs out there, few things are as infuriating, to me, as launching a system, touting its features, and then completely foregoing any pretense of caring about it. Playstation TV does not even have a Sony support page.

At least with the PS Vita, Sony continued to bring over indie game support and more features after they slowed down production of large brand titles. At least Apple acknowledged Apple TV as a hobby before aggressively updating it in the last year and now turning it into the place to get HBO Now, the cord cutter HBO app. Sony wants us all to forget about the Playstation TV, except when they put it on store shelves.

Shame on them.

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