Is Playstation Vue a viable cord-cutter option?

Kinda weird that there hasn't been any topic on this yet as Playstation Vue launched early last week, but as a current cable subscriber this looks like a very interesting alternative. Almost.

It has pretty much every channel you'd would want (at least that I cant think of) with AMC and IFC coming in April, the only exception being Disney, ESPN and ABC which I'm sure they're working on.

This service looks fantastic and I wish I was in NY, Philadelphia or Chicago so I could do the 7 day trial. The issue however seems to be price. For $50 a month on top of your internet bill, you're not saving much money at all, if any. And for me I think I'm probably gonna need the $60 package to get FSN to watch Tigers baseball. I think Sony needs to like, take $10 off a month for PS+ users or something like that.

Any cord cutters here have an opinion on Vue? Anyone from NY, Philadelphia or Chicago tried it out yet? What do you guys think? Price aside, how does Sony need to improve this service?

From the tiny bit of research I have done, I think the Slingbox app (Sling TV) for Xbox One for $20/mo looks better. I have to look into it more when I get back to Germany to see if either of them work in Europe. I have found Netflix / Hulu Plus / and now the HBO Now app (when it's released) will get the job done. However, I still haven't figured out a good solution for watching Jets and Yankees games.

I don't know what Sony is thinking with this pricing, I could get a high speed internet + TV bundle for around the same price. I'm using Sling TV with an antenna right now, it does the job, but it would be a helluva lot better with FX and FXX.

I guess it depends on why you're cutting the cord. You certainly won't be saving money with this option, but I guess you would still be getting away from the cable company to a certain degree. Some combination of Netflix, Hulu Plus, Sling TV, and/or Amazon Prime seems like a better alternative for most people.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'd opt for. I could subscribe to Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Crunchyroll and I'd still be paying way less and getting much more content. I'm sure at some point it could be a good alternative to cable/satellite but as of right now, I'm inclined to say no.

I was interested until I saw the price, fuck that shit

How is this even considered an option? You're paying for a bunch of channels you don't want, just like with the cable company, except that it is priced higher than what I'm paying for TV right now. In addition, getting a non-TV, internet only service, means paying a small fee extra. So this is like, cutting the cord so you can pay more for less through the internet instead? I don't get it.

I'm paying € 8,99 a month for Netflix and that doesn't have everything I want, seems like Vue has even less? No, thank you.

I'm happy with my € 19 a month unlimited theater visits, € 8,99 a month Netflix and using the T-word for everything else.

As a North American who watches Soccer and F1 Racing, I'm fucked and cannot get away from cable. It sucks.

I don't know who it's for. If you have cable internet you're better off with the cable company (bandwith caps). If you are a cord cutter you probably already have Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/etc.

You should get Dish Latino for 20 bucks a month. Has all the Soccer and F1 you could want. Better commentary, too. Just gotta learn Spanish.

They need to reduce the price by 50% per package, if not more. Those prices are just stupid. They are less channels for the same price as a standard cable package. Also they need to land better channels and probably throw in a build your own bundle for $34.99 or something. This will fail because they are not seeing the reason why people want to 'cut the cord' apparently. I cut and went with Sling + extra sports for $25 a month and I am happy with it. The only way this would entice me to switch is if they had similar package for the price.

I was pretty excited when I saw that Fox Sports Detroit would be available on the service, then I saw the price. That $60 a month gets a much better selection of channels from the cable/dish company.

I'll just stick with random internet streams for my Pistons and Tigers fix.

Yeah — I'm not sure who this is marketed at. At $50/month you might as well just pay a couple dollars more and just get a full cable package. The biggest omission, obviously, is sports. $25/month alone on sling would get you literally everything on ESPN's family of networks plus TNT.

Sports are the only reason that I still have cable. Hands down. The second that a viable alternative presents itself, and I can stream that to my xbox one or similar service, I'm done with cable.

Honestly, if it were just me, I'd probably cut now and watch whatever games i'm interested in at a bar. The wife does not agree.

Not sure which sport(s) you follow, but here's my quick, hot (American) take on it. Obviously, if you follow say, more than 2 of these sports regularly, a cable package is still necessary.

• Baseball (MLB.tv): You can get this for way cheap (25/month) if you split it with others, but it does technically violate ToS. They haven't gone after sharers in the 4 years I've used the service, however.
• NBA (League Pass): Sling can be replaced if your team happens to be a major market team that gets aired regularly enough on TBS/ESPN. Hoop Streams is an option, but alas, not legal.
• NHL (Gamecenter): Hockey Streams is an option here, but again, that's not quite legal in most territories. However, one note for the latter option — it's 60 fps compared to the garbage 30 fps gamecenter gives you.
• NFL: Unless your team happens to be on a broadcast network, you're pretty much SOL. This is the industry's bread and butter. One plus is Sling can cover ESPN's games, but that's a small portion of the whole airing schedule.
• College Basketball: Good news! If your team is a D1 major conference team, an antenna and a sling sub from tip off to march covers something like 80% of all games.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I might just try the antenna option - I'm mainly just in it for college football and basketball. The only catch is that I live in a rural area. I'll try it and see what I can pick up.

@tall_guy: Use this: http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29

It'll give you a real good idea of what stations you can pick up.

According to that link, I'll be able to pick up... PBS. Hah!