Although PS4 owners with an HBO subscription have been able to start using their streaming service this week if their service provider is Comcast/ Xfinity customer they are given a resounding not on this ISP.
The battles between Comcast and Sony go back for over a year and on the PS3 as well frustrating many of the console users. Comcast continues to prevent its customers from accessing to the streaming service despite competitors like AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, and many others allowing it.
Customers of Comcast who had been hoping the PS4 version would bring a resolution to the problem that has existed on PS3 for a year were sorely disappointed and Comcast has yet to offer any satisfactory answer for the lack of support.
Customer complaints over the past year since the PS3 got HBO Go have been met with a variety of responses from Comcast. Not technical incompatibilities as a company spokesperson said the issues were up to “business decisions.”
Comcast spokesperson on their forums quoted
“HBO Go availability on PS3 (and some other devices) are business decisions and deal with business terms that have not yet been agreed to between the parties, Thanks for your continued patience.”
Comcast spokesperson declined to offer a timeline for when PS3 or PS4 support would be coming, instead highlighting that HBO’s library is available through Xfinity set top boxes and the Xfinity TV Go platform.
Also it seems that PlayStation systems are not the only devices that Comcast has prevented access to HBO Go on. Customers were unable to access the service from Roku devices until this past December, while Amazon Fire TV is still on the blocked list.
It will be interesting to see how Comcast will come to terms with targeted streaming options outside of their system, for now it is a wait and see issue.
