Our gaming boxes have been passive receptacles for streaming TV shows and movies for years now. They've all approached it in more or less the same way - install the app for Netflix, load it up, and hope you can find something interesting. Their significance as media hubs has waned over the last few years as an increasing number of cheap, tiny, set-top boxes have provided the same function. But Sony's new PlayStation Vue se♛rvi💯ce could put PS3 and PS4 back at the center of the streaming household.

PlayStation Vue is the culmination of a year's worthꦑ of rumblings from Sony Compu🤪ter Entertainment: a monthly subscription service which offers live access to a number of channels and on-demand streaming for recent shows. No more bugging relatives for their service provider details so you can log in to dozens of individual channel apps - all you need is an internet connection.

Sony says it will offer PS Vue for a 'fair and competitive price' on a month-to-month subscription, giving consumers access to live television with none of the dread-inspiring contracts that are standard for cable or satellite providers. The service will launch with about 75 channe🗹ls for each market, from an initial lineup of companies including CBS, Discovery Communications, Fox, NBCUniversal, Scripps Networks Interactive, and Viacom.

launc🌃hing the service outside the US at th🥃is time.

As products like Amazon Fire TV and Google's Nexus Player compete to deliver the best traditional video streaming experience, PlayStation is quietly edging toward the dream scenario where users can finally get all their TV programming - not a lot of it, but all of it - over the internet. Remember how PS2's reasonably priced DVD drive helped it sell like gangbusters as the medium took off? Now PS3 and PS4 are at the forefront of a new standard for video streaming, and savvy media consumers may once again be unable to 🔯resist.

Exciting a prospect as flipping one last bird to cable and satellite providers may be, PS Vu♔e is far from a guaranteed hit (remember how TVii on Wii U, erm, changed the world?). Will it be able to secure enough chanꦐnels and offer a good selection of shows on demand? Just how 'fair and competitive' will its prices be? We'll just have to wait and see. But for folks who want to cut every cord but the ethernet cable, PlayStation is starting to look pretty appealing.