Sony: PlayStation TV ‘didn’t capture consumers’ imagination’

Sony studios boss Shuhei Yoshida has said that the difficulty in explaining exactly what PlayStation TV is has led to the streaming devices’ failure.

"It didn’t capture the consumers’ imagination," he told Game Informer. "It’s a hard concept to explain. You could say it’s a mini-console, it’s a video streaming device. If we say it’s a mini-console, like other mini-consoles, people expect a better device like PS4 or Xbox One. It’s short in that delivery. When you say it’s a video streaming device, there are other devices with higher def video.

It has some unique things like remote play of PS4 games. It can do many things, but it’s not easy to say this one thing is extremely good. I think that’s the reason we were not able to convince people at the original price."

The machine launched at 84.99 in the UK but can now widely be found for between 40-60.

There was huge excitement about the device upon its unveiling in late 2013. However, a little over a year later US retailers began handing the device out for free with some purchases. Its UK RRP was dropped earlier this year.