Sony announces internet TV service, plans to start testing it later this year
Sony wants to launch its own online TV service with a cloud DVR and live TV feeds. The service will scheduled to go into testing in the U.S. later this year. — Not discouraged by Intel's failure to launch …
Context & Ripple Effects
Sony used CES 2014 to announce an internet TV service built around live feeds and a cloud DVR, with U.S. testing planned later this year — a bid that comes after Intel's own virtual-pay-TV effort failed to launch, which Gigaom flags directly in the headline. The announcement extends a line that runs back to Google's 2010 push for a television foothold, when consumer-tech companies first tried to crack the pay-TV bundle.
Sony is framing the move carefully: CEO Kaz Hirai told press the same day that the cloud TV offering won't compete head-on with cable — positioning it as a complement while the company negotiates for content. The pickup across The Verge, Re/code, CNET, CNNMoney, NYT Bits, BGR and others shows how closely the industry is watching whether anyone can succeed where Intel could not.
First-order effects
- U.S. broadcasters and cable networks gain a new potential licensee for live streams, with Sony entering negotiations in the wake of Intel's failed launch — every deal now sets the template price for the next suitor.
- Sony's existing PlayStation customer base becomes the initial test audience for a service whose cloud DVR removes local storage from the equation entirely.
Second-order effects
- Pay-TV operators face a second front: if Sony prices the service as a complement rather than a replacement, as Hirai claims, cable's defensive task shifts from blocking the product to proving the bundle still beats à-la-carte live feeds plus a cloud DVR.
- Intel's retreat effectively hands the 'hardware maker as MVPD' concept to Sony alone among the current entrants, raising the stakes on Sony's carriage talks — rights holders know a Sony failure likely closes the door on the category for years.
Third-order effects
- If the testing leads to launch, live television distribution starts decoupling from the cable subscription itself, with device makers — Sony here, following Google's earlier attempt — becoming gatekeepers between networks and viewers.
- The same-day PlayStation Now announcement points at a broader structural shift: Sony converting console-era relationships into recurring cloud services across gaming and TV, a platform strategy where the hardware is the entry point and subscriptions are the business.
The trend: Consumer electronics makers are converting hardware franchises into subscription services, moving live television off the cable bundle and onto internet-delivered platforms one carriage negotiation at a time.