By: Jimmy Clark
For years, having cable television was the only way to access your favorite TV shows, sporting events, and movies. Lately though, cable television has taken a back seat to other applications such as Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix. Now in 2015, the TV Internet Service called the Sony Playstation Vue is looking to be one of them. The newest way of watching your favorite shows is called Internet TV, where you can stream your favorite shows live off of the internet. Vue gives you the possibility to stream channels such as NBC, Comedy Central, Fox News, MTV and 80 others on your PlayStation game console. It’s also bundled with many other features including an infinite DVR that never fills up.
The biggest concern we see with the Vue is the price. Vue costs $50 to $70 a month, depending on your channel lineup, which is more expensive than your original cable plan. The prices from Internet TV may not beat cable, but you’re adding more on to what you already have without leaving anything behind. Back in January, Sling TV became the first ever Internet TV steaming service at $20 a month. Vue offers more popular channels like NBC and FOX News, but of misses out some of the big channels such as NBC, Disney, and ESPN. Sony claims that they are currently attempting to make deals to bring more of these channels aboard, which might be important since ESPN is already included in the Sling TV package.
Vue, for the moment, is only included in big cities such as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia because its content agreements are specific to local markets. It’s currently trying to expand into new metro areas in the near future. It’s also only accessible for those who either own a PlayStation 3 or 4. Sony claims that if you’re biased towards Xbox, or you’re not a gamer, it’s simply is not for you. Writer Geoffrey A. Fowler claims, “Operating the TV with the game controller frustrated me for about an hour until I figured out its seven buttons. A traditional linear program guide shows what’s on right now—though there’s no one-button way to change the channel.”
Vue’s interface includes a big list of all of your shows that you can search alphabetically or by categories. As I added before, the DVR has unlimited storage, but it saves everything in the cloud which can amass shows with wild abandon. One flaw of the DVR system is when fast-forwarding and rewinding your recorded shows, you can’t see where you’re skipping which makes it hard to move passed the commercials efficiently.
Accessing PlayStation Vue is not about saving money. When you access Vue it’s about getting a premium viewing experiences that gives you better options than cable. Internet TV is new so it’s certain that its software will keep improving in the future. I see the climb of Internet TV being slow, but I see it eventually becoming more popular over time. You see it in music with the popularity of steaming music with Spotify and Pandora, and I think that we will see the same trend with TV.
Marketing Discussions 
This is similar to the article I have chosen. After reading both of them, I honestly feel that although netflix will most likely stay around for awhile, but they need to step up their variety of shows and movies. I do think that Playstation Vue will be a good new way to watch tv. However, like the article says “if you’re not a gamer then its not for you”. Even though Play Station Vue is only available in a few cities, it will also only be available to people with playstation. For now, netflix, hulu, and amazon might loose customers to play station users, but I don’t think Playstation Vue could ever put any of these companies out of business.
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I truly believe that the PlayStation Vue is a great concept for the introduction to the Internet TV market. The major concern I see PlayStation having is the initial hump to bring everyone from the monopoly of cable TV to a more Internet based way of streaming. This is something that may take time even great marketing may not be enough for people to make the switch right away. Word of mouth from people trying the product and liking how it works is what I believe will make the most impact for Sony. The other issue is that you need a game console to have the service, which takes a lot of people out of the target market. Imagine older folks in their late years going out and buying a PlayStation system; chances are it’s not going to happen.
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Vue seems like an interesting program created by Playstation. Personally, I haven’t heard of it until this article. Netflix and Hulu still in my mind appear to be the front runners of online streaming of tv shows and what not. If you don’t have cable and choose Vue as your cable provider, then yeah it may be worth the money. The problem I find with this is that now-a-days majority of homes have multiple TV sets in their homes. So therefore, if you are using Vue as a cable provider you would need multiple playstations in various rooms throughout your house with the other TVs. I mean I guess over time the amount you spent on the playstations + the Vue bill amount would probably amount to less 3-4 years down the road compared to if you were someone who owned Comcast. Vue could potentially be something big in the future, they do have some price/offering tweaking to do to compete with Netflix’s $8/month bill.
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The PlayStation Vue is a great idea for those who own a PlayStation 3 or 4. If I were to be looking for product that would stream movies and I had to pay the price that they are offering I would not chose this option. I think that this is a great product, offering this amount networks with multiple television shows is a great deal. Except the price is very unreasonable, plus you as the consumer would need to purchase your own internet as well as the streaming television. One part that I find as an obstacle is that for you as the consumer to use the Vue your PlayStation must be connected to your television. I only see this product being useful for those who have one television. For families and consumers with multiple televisions, this is a waste because you cannot use it on multiple devices. Overall, I think the idea is great, but the target market is small.
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I do not see this as being a success for Sony. I idea presented in this articular is that cord cutters still want the cord. PlayStation Vue would be essentially the same style of service as traditional cable but streamed. It offers less consistency that cable at a higher cost. With functions such as Netflix and Hulu already available directly on PlayStation and the ability to stream this is more of a change your cable company than getting rid of it. This is especially true since it would still require heavy bandwidth to stream a lot of content.
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Although this idea does sound good at first, I feel as though it will not become very popular. Firstly, because of the price; If an individual would like to pay more money than they do now on a cable service, where they are limited in the amount of channels they will have access to, then they should purchase Playstation Vue. Otherwise, they could stick with their current cable provider, save money, not be limited to what they can watch, and still have other media-viewing apps such as Netflix or Hulu Plus ready to use on their Playstation console. If this were to succeed, it may take some time for people to see how well it actually works, and if it is worth the money. However I do feel that it has the potential to be a successful product, given time.
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I think they will have a difficult time with the Vue because it can only be used for those who own a Play Station. Not everyone owns a Play Station, some have XBOX and some don’t have a video game consuel at all. I do think it could be a pretty good idea and something that may be huge in the coming years, but other alternatives for non Play Station users needs to be figured out. Also, popular TV Networks that are not offered need to be added for it to be successful.
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I think the Vue is a great idea but so is netflix or any other version of this. I agree with Brandon. Not everyone owns a playstation. That went out and the next big thing was the xbox and wii. It could be a great idea for those who have a play station but I don’t think it means it will take over cable completely.
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I think that Vue is a great idea but its just a the beginning. I mean, Vue is just for play station users, but so many other people own Xbox or other platforms. So i Think it will have hard time at the beginning but with necessary changes it will be a great idea
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I think it will be a necessary product in a family, but for now, it is not mature. First I think high price is a performance about technology’s immaturity, people prefer to buy regular cable provider, just because it is too expensive. Next is customers have to use PlayStation 3 or 4, I think it will reduce this product’s demand. Although it sounds good, but I think it can not be successful in nowadays.
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I believe that Vue is not going to be to successful. I think that Netflix and Hulu have to much of a predominate hold on the market and I think that it is going to be hard for them to keep up with netflix and hulu which are comparable with almost every electric device. I believe that they are not going to be able to compete by limiting their market to just play station users. The revenue is not going to be enough to even come close to competing with these other companies and if they want any chance of success they need to try and expand their market.
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I think that Vue has some potential but it does have its work cut out for them. Competing with Netflix is a tough thing to do when so many people are already hooked. They must have a strong marketing strategy and really follow through with that they’re selling if they’re going to get people interested.
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Although Vue is a new interesting concept, I do not think that it is going to replace Netflix or come close to it. Part of it I think is that Netflix has such a huge fan base already that it will hard for people to just move to another system. Also, the Vue means everyone is going to have to purchase a Playstation which is money then pay for the Vue on top of that. It is a good idea for some people but for the majority, it is just not realistic.
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I don’t think this idea will work, because they have so many competitors and its only for PlayStation consumers. The negative downfall is that people will have to buy Playstations for all their TV’s in order to get that. Which would definitely cost more more money for consumers to use this product rather than getting cable and using it for all their T.V.’s.
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I don’t believe that the PlayStation vue idea will catch on. It targets an extremely small target market of those who play video games and focusses on PlayStation users specifically. As of now some big channels are not accessible thru vue and this makes it less drawing. Also a PlayStation must be connected to a TV and vue is more expensive then cable making it seem irrelevant to the consumers purpose. The only feature I found compelling was the unlimited DVR, although I feel there must be a better option to this feature. Overall, I believe this market is already to big and PlayStation will need a lot of advancement on this idea to be successful, right now I see this idea as a failure.
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I think having Playstation create a streaming service is a good idea for their target market, because they have more of a chance of converting Netflix watchers to use Playstation because it is right through their device. But thats the thing it would only appeal to the Playstation users. In the article it states: “if you’re not a gamer then its not for you” excluded a huge other market they could have attempted to reach. It was a good idea for them to offer different plans varying is price, this can keep them competitive with Netflix or Hulu because they are considered to be relatively cheap, but I do not think Playstation will be able to become a threat to these streaming services just because they are better known and reach a larger target market because all you need is internet compared to needing a playstation.
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I believe that having a movie-streaming system as well as PS4’s will gain more popularity as a gaming system and possibly take over X-box, however the movie-streaming industry is too big to control the market for that. Since, televisions are consumed in most households whereas PS4 is consumed in only a fraction of households, people may stick to their trusted movie supplier.
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