On Thursday, Sony announced its own internally developed online streaming video service, dubbed PlayStation Vue, set to launch in a limited beta this month. The announcement outlined many of the subscription service's early details, including a focus on network television, roughly 75 participating stations, and, perhaps most notably, the ability to stream live television. That's in stark contrast to similar paid services like Hulu, which force users to wait up to a full day for their favorite series to be streamable online.

According to Sony's press release on the matter, participating stations currently include much of the Viacom family (CBS, MTV, Comedy Central), along with Fox and NBC and some of their subsidiary stations. Currently, the major holdout is the ESPN-Disney family, which also carries ABC; that combination of network hits, sports content, and family viewing will be a major content hurdle for anybody seeing PlayStation Vue as a no-cable, cord-cutting path to live TV.

Shocking no one, Sony announced that the service would debut on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles. Those versions will roll out in a limited, New York-only beta (only on PlayStation Plus) by the end of this month, with a wider launch expected in the first quarter of 2015. The company also announced that it's "working on" an iOS app, but no timeframe was given for when that, or other compatible device apps (particularly the PlayStation Vita), might arrive.

Sony was eager to show off interface images, which fall in line with the company's PlayStation Store designs for both compatible consoles. The company also revealed that its service will serve and retain content based on "favorites" chosen by users. Importantly, thanks to cloud storage, users won't have to worry about hard-drive limits for such saved video content. However, Sony was less eager to attach a price to the service, instead telling outlets that the price will be "competitive."

Weirdly, Sony didn't use the opportunity to advertise its upcoming PlayStation-branded TV content, particularly a superhero-themed series called Powers that was announced at this year's E3.