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Intrinsic on 19 November 2014
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Machiavellian said:
So let me get this straight. I will pay Sony just like I pay a cable company for TV. Sony will be competing with cable companies for the same selection of channels as cable companies do so I really do not see any savings or advantage here. Actually the more you read this article, it has that fanboy slant to it that make you not take it seriously. There is a lot of missing information about Sony TV service and price and channel selection is a big one. Without that info there is nothing here that make this service stand out over anything else on the market.

Hell, most of the big cable companies already allow you to use their service without a cable box. Premium content providers are also on the net including local providers like ABC, NBC etc. The more I think about this the more it sounds like this TV service will be obsolete before it hit the ground.

I would gladly take back my opinion if Sony offered me a way to select specific Channels I want and forget the rest for an ultra low price but the way it sound, this will not be the option and only just be an alternative provider which may not even be better than whats offered today.

You are asking for things that aren't possible.

What PSVue is is literally a direct competitor to the cable companies. Where for now the cable box is literally you PS4. Nothing more nothing less. And that is how the service needs to be looked at. Now once you can do that, then you can start factoring in the benefits to such a service.

Remeber, this is sony saying, pay us, instead of paying your cable company.

Benefits (these are just ideas combining such a service with a dedicated gaming console)

  1. "Smart Cable". Your channels can be better integrated into the system and as per your viewing  habits. And you will have a more immersive and content specific UI as the screenshot shows. Gone will be the channel guide, and in comes the content guide. 
  2. Possibility of cummunity services. The could very well do something like they are doing with PSshare right now wheer they could allow a friend watch shows you ghave recorded from your system to theirs via. Or think about things like trending shows. If a show is trending, it would be easy to make it visible to users  and you can see what your friends think about it directly. 
  3. TV DVR can be a cloud feature as opposed to you having to record stuff directly to your harddrive. Wjat this meas is that you could literally record an infinite number of shows simultaneous and just stream them whenever you want to or have the time to watch them.
  4. You could share favorites lists with other PS users and intsntly have reminders set for all the shows they are watching on your own system instead of filtering trough shows individually.
  5. Pay as you go model, no contract fees. You want to only have it for the NFL playoff season, then you pay for a month or two and call it a day. And if having PS+ somehow ties into it, even when not paying for the Tv service you could still be recording shows that you could watch whenever you do pay for it.
  6. Global presence. They can basically have services tailor made for every region they are in. Something that cable companies basically can't do today. So they could have a service with 75 channels in NA. One with 50 chanels in NA. One with 45 channels in japan and another with 30 in spain. With very little crossover and very region specific programming. This is actually the biggest single benefit to the service. 
Possible issues
  1. The price. It can't be ignored, the cost of this service isn't just what you pay monthly, but also whatever you pay for your monthly internet connection. Some may say that you are paying for internet anyways, but you can't have this service without an internet connection. So that should be factord into the price.
  2. Just like cable, it will be impossible to get individual channels as per your exact requirements. Cause content providers don't do that. A cntent provider may know all you want from them is Channel A. And maybe Channel B and have no interest n channels C, D and E. So what they always do is that they bundle channels C, D and E along with channel A and B and sell that to sony. Somthing to the tune of pay us $4.25 for channel A and B or $5 for everything.
  3. Roll out wil be very slow since they are not just tapping into existing services and creating theer own. Then again they have been working on this for years so who knows how far they have gone.