While most companies are looking to get into the video streaming space, one company is now looking to get out of it. Sony recently announced that it will be shutting down the PlayStation Vue TV streaming service on January 30, 2020.
When it first revealed the service back in 2014, Sony touted PlayStation Vue as a service that “reinvents the television experience.” When it launched it offered live feeds of over 75 channels from various networks, alongside on-demand video. Additionally, unlike other services, it allowed customers to subscribe to individual channels instead of paying for all of them together.
ALSO: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is coming to Steam as EA and Valve announce partnership
One of Vue’s strengths was its partnership with a number of big networks, allowing their channels to be broadcast on it. However, it seems that the cost of acquiring and maintaining these content deals, alongside the growth of other streaming services, caused Sony to pull the plug. “Unfortunately, the highly competitive Pay TV industry, with expensive content and network deals, has been slower to change than we expected,” stated the company in a recent PlayStation Blog post. “Because of this, we have decided to remain focused on our core gaming business.”
Prior to this, Sony had actually been looking to sell off PlayStation Vue. The company was working with Bank of America Merrill Lynch to try to look for a possible buyer for both Vue’s technology, and its subscriber list. With the announcement of the closure however, it looks like a buyer was never found.
As for those looking to continue to stream video on their PlayStation 4, Sony’s blog post pointed to its “partnerships with top entertainment apps” instead. With a number of new services, such as Disney Plus, looking to bring increased competition into the market, Sony probably thinks it’ll benefit more by pulling their own service out and simply letting these others in their hardware.
