Switching to Playstation Vue: Cost Analysis

I have to admit something: I haven’t been eating my own dog food – at least when it comes to disruptive technologies. My company preaches leveraging disruptors; as a consultant, I constantly encourage my clients to take advantage of the newest tech to reduce capital (and operating cost).

So, I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t practiced what I’ve preached – when it comes to communication and media costs. I have a contract with satellite company. I have a home phone with a local provider. Last week, I received a bill from my local telco for $112 – and that’s just for internet service and a home phone (which my family only uses for the alarm and to have in case of an emergency).

My satellite provider bill is just as bad: $113. Between my wife and I, we only watch sports and maybe 5-6 hours of cable content per week. Most of my television watching is original programming on Netflix or HBO (which I only subscribe to for 3 months in order to watch Game of Thrones¹).

I did some quick math; based off my bill, I’m due to spend over $2700 over the next two years on satellite television. Even if I called the company and haggled the price down (lets assume a 30% reduction in price for the first year of a two year contract), that’s $2300.

Now compare that to Sony’s new PlayStation Vue system. At a cost of $45 a month, I get every channel I regularly watch, except NBA TV. To account for that, I’ll assume an additional $160 over the two years to purchase 2 games a month a la carte from NBA League Pass.

I’ll also need new hardware to run PlayStation Vue. I’ve got two TVs, so I’ll assume that I’ll purchase an Amazon Fire Stick for the office and a Fire Box for the living room. I’ve got about $60 in gift certificates, so that takes an original cost of $150 to $90.

Finally, the remotes from the Fire devices do not control volume…. so I’ll need two Slideclick devices to manipulate volume and input switching (at $30 each).

Even with all those extras, that comes out to a 2 year estimated cost of $1500. That’s someplace between $800 – $1200 in savings! Even with the larger up front cost investment, I start saving between month 5 and 6.

So, I’m buying a Fire Stick and starting my 1 week trial of Playstation Vue this week.

1. By the way, if you love GoT, then you need to be reading Jason Concepcion’s “Ask the Maester” column on The Ringer (@ringer).