In a nutshell: There will soon be one less competitor in the over-the-top Internet TV race. Sony Interactive Entertainment on Tuesday announced intentions to shut down the PlayStation Vue streaming service on January 30, 2020. A sale of the service was previously rumored but simply shutting it down seems like the worst-case scenario.
SIE Deputy President John Kodera said in a blog post announcing the closure that the highly competitive pay TV industry was slower to change than they initially expected. "Because of this, we have decided to remain focused on our core gaming business," Kodera noted.
The executive added that they are very proud of what they accomplished with PlayStation Vue and thanked customers for their support over the years.
Reports surfaced late last week that Sony had hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch to explore the possibility of offloading the money-losing service. Sony didn't mention anything about a sale in today's announcement so it would seem that for now, that possibility is off the table and the service will simply cease to exist in any form come the end of next January.
That's a bit of a shame, really, for both Sony and the streaming community as a whole. Cord cutting generated a lot of momentum in the middle part of the decade but progress has slowed considerably due to rising content costs and the emergence of standalone video platforms like Netflix and the pending arrival of Apple TV+ and Disney+.
Do you subscribe to an over-the-top service? Are you still with a traditional cable / satellite provider? Maybe you've cut the cord entirely? Let us know where you stand in late 2019 in the comments section below.