Sony might be a longtime manufacturer of Android devices, but the company is focusing on another mobile operating system when it comes to using its video streaming service. Along with Amazon's Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Sony announced in November that PlayStation Vue would be accessible on a Chromecast. Support for those two Amazon devices started right away while a wait was put in place for the service's availability on Google's little media player. The wait is finally over, but the structure of PlayStation Vue's Chromecast support is a bit.. limited.
People with Android devices are still unable to use PlayStation Vue on a Chromecast. Happen to own a device with iOS on it? You're good to go.
Sony is limiting PlayStation Vue's use on Chromecast to only allow people with iOS devices to stream anything. If you're scratching your head, I'm nearly as confused as you are. Sony is a company with struggling mobile division that can't seem to get a single thing right. And so they decide to not even allow their own devices to use PlayStation Vue with a Chromecast. Aside from releasing an absurd amount of devices annually, Sony now has the problem of supporting the competition before it supports its own customers.
For a service that costs $49-$64 per month, Sony is welcoming a very small amount of people to try PlayStation Vue with limited support.
Source: PlayStation (Twitter)
It’s not just the mobile division, it’s basically the whole company. Like Nintendo and other Japanese companies, cultural problems that are fairly deep-rooted in Japanese society have hindered it. Centralised decision making (basically only the Tokyo HQ gets to decide anything), in-fighting between departments (and relatedly, the “siloing” of different departments and divisions from each other), promotion by age/time spent at the company (rather than ability, talent or evidence of well-competed projects), promotion by ethnicity or nationality (foreigners are rarely employed, nurtured or kept for long), promotion by sex, etc.
What is left is a very conservative company, full of proud, nationalistic old men, who have deep-rooted and traditional views, who are able to influence the company, while having the clout to resist change from female, younger, foreign or outside sources. Thus, the traditional divisions (TV manufacturing, etc) have been able to keep the company back, and hinder the mobile and PlayStation division (which, as most companies are moving into mobile, has only recently become the “alpha department”). Now, it seems that the PS division is getting more love than the mobile division.
In not surprised by this move. Sony have always had weak software offerings and their media services have largely become irrelevant, even though their media content is rich.