Sony’s new little black box is great for playing games, but it sucks if you want to watch Orange is the New Black.
PlayStation TV launched in North America yesterday, but it’s already showing its limitations. While you can use PS TV to play PlayStation Vita, original PlayStation, PSP, and even PlayStation 4 games via streaming, you can’t use it to watch Netflix, the online video service with over 50 million subscribers. It’s a big stumbling block for a device that will fight for space under TVs this holiday with streaming solutions like Roku, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV.
As far as games go, PS TV seems to have it covered, as we pointed out in our overview yesterday . But the lack of other media options for the $99 device is worrying.
Although there’s a Netflix app for PlayStation Vita, which you can actually download and install on PS TV, it just won’t run on the device. Neither will the apps for popular services like Hulu Plus and YouTube, according to Gizmodo.
A Netflix representative told Gizmodo, “We have no current support plans for Netflix on PS TV.”
Sony was a little more upbeat in its statement, but didn’t actually say when Netflix or other video services — beyond the initial offerings of Crackle (film and TV), Crunchyroll (anime), and Qello (music) — will be available on PS TV:
“PS TV plays entertainment content, including popular movies and TV shows that can be downloaded from PlayStation Store. At launch, PS TV has video streaming apps Crackle, Crunchyroll, and Qello. Stay tuned for additional entertainment content we’ll be adding soon to the PS TV lineup.”