PSA: (US) HBO Go no longer supported on PS3 or Xbox

xinoart · Jan 14, 2019

So last night I decided to tune in and watch the new True Detective episode. Lo and behold, PS3 is no longer supported. Apparently for the 360 as well, but I no longer have that system to verify this.

I received no email and apparently, they only put a notice on the app in the last few weeks. I haven't used the app until just after Thanksgiving so I'm not sure when the notices were pushed to the app. Kinda sucks though since my PS3 is my main media station currently, but I guess I'll be using my PS4 more for media now.

Just a heads up since some people may not be aware of this.

Masquerade Overture · Jan 14, 2019

Can't be waiting on the last minute to change systems like that.

Obsolescence is real.

Dom6 · Jan 14, 2019

Lots of people use the PS3 / 360 still as media apps since it's just media and they still work, well worked. Gonna be interesting to see as more media apps get sunset for planned obsolesce.

I'm sure they probably had data (at least I'd hope) of what % of monthly active users are going to be affected, and it's not like devices are expected to be supported from now until the end of time, but some sort of external notification to the email address on file (instead of in-app) would probably be the way to go.

xxracerxx · Jan 14, 2019

What about HBO Now?

xinoart · Jan 14, 2019

Masquerade Overture said:
Can't be waiting on the last minute to change systems like that.

Obsolescence is real.

dr_p0p7ar7_ said:
Lots of people use the PS3 / 360 still as media apps since it's just media and they still work, well worked. Gonna be interesting to see as more media apps get sunset for planned obsolesce.

I'm sure they probably had data (at least I'd hope) of what % of monthly active users are going to be affected, and it's not like devices are expected to be supported from now until the end of time, but some sort of external notification to the email address on file (instead of in-app) would probably be the way to go.

Obsolescence I understand, but the swiftness is kind of weird. Plus, the app just connects to their servers, like any tablet or web interface. I don't think that's a reason to shut off the connections since everything using HBO Go connect the same way across all platforms (from my limited understanding of it).

xxracerxx said:
What about HBO Now?

I have HBO through my satellite provider. I thought HBO Now is a different subscription service, but I may be wrong. If it affects PS3/30 as well that would suck for people who sub just to HBO Now.

maximumzero · Jan 14, 2019

The wife and I actually finally replaced our Xbox 360 with an Apple TV last weekend partially due to this.

prodyg · Jan 14, 2019

Wow... HBO Go actually came to PS3. For a while it was just Xbox. Oh well, im sure i remember reading that the 360 wont be supported anymore a long time a go.

FutureLarking · Jan 14, 2019

I know on the 360 side developers have not been allowed to update their apps for some time now, so if there are any important service changes that need be handled... well, they can't, they have to take the app down. Surprised as many of them are lasting as long as they are at this point.

*I worked on both HBO Go and HBO Now (as lead) apps for 360. As frustrating as it was trying to get everything to fit within the memory limits of the 360 with Silverlight's XAML engine and media pipeline gobbling up everything and the absurd amount of certification requirements that needed juggling, it was a fucking joy compared to the hell that was developing an application on PS3. It can't be stated enough how beautiful Microsoft's tooling and UI frameworks are in these regards. PS4 is barely any better than the PS3 either, and the early Xbox One WinJS push that required HTML frontends were a step back imo - and part of the reason the launch dashboard and apps were slow slow. (Thankfully XAML is back after a very long delay)

Vashetti · Jan 14, 2019

They obviously have the user numbers to hand, likelihood is there's very few people using those apps on the old consoles anymore. So in their eyes it's better to drop them and focus attention on the platforms with more usage, where you can push new features.

Funky_Monkey · Jan 14, 2019

I noticed this at the weekend as week. Gather it stopped on January 8th.

xinoart · Jan 14, 2019

Funky_Monkey said:
I noticed this at the weekend as week. Gather it stopped on January 8th.

Correct. I forgot to add the date to the title.

dabri · Jan 14, 2019

Psn for ps3 shuts down in April anyways. Little insintive to continue support.

Edit: looks like it's March and not April. Also it's just supportwith ps+ free games. I thought it was the entire service.

KenobiLTS · Jan 14, 2019

dabri said:
Psn for ps3 shuts down in April anyways. Little insintive to continue support.

No! Who said that? Only free PS Plus games.

NinjaScooter · Jan 14, 2019

These are 10+ year old pieces of hardware. I doubt as many people were still using them as you guys think, otherwise they'd update the app. The numbers must be so low it's simply not worth the cost of updating/testing/certifying for these app creators. Not in a world where damn near every TV now has apps built in and Amazon/Roku sticks are like $20.

FutureLarking · Jan 14, 2019

xinoart said:
Obsolescence I understand, but the swiftness is kind of weird. Plus, the app just connects to their servers, like any tablet or web interface. I don't think that's a reason to shut off the connections since everything using HBO Go connect the same way across all platforms (from my limited understanding of it).

Adaptive bitrate streaming on Xbox 360 apps tended to use Microsoft's Smooth Streaming video format, because Microsoft had great tools for it and made money off selling it, so it was well supported on Xbox. But it required your server to run IIS, have licenses for the encoding tools. HLS didn't really exist / wasn't that big in those days so there wasn't native 360 support for it. At some point some clever fellow at Microsoft actually wrote a HLS parser in C# you could use for 360 apps, but I don't recall if HBO used it. But being able to drop that format entirely would certainly save server costs.

(Of course, a lot of apps didn't even use adaptive streaming at all, just fixed bitrate streams. Hell, I don't remember if HBO did, but you couldn't go too high on the bitrates, and the supported formats were very limited)

Khaos Prime · Jan 14, 2019

Slightly OT, but does anyone know if Bandersnatch works on PS3 or 360?

z1yin9c · Jan 14, 2019

side note... true detective is great again :)

xinoart · Jan 14, 2019

NinjaScooter said:
These are 10+ year old pieces of hardware. I doubt as many people were still using them as you guys think, otherwise they'd update the app. The numbers must be so low it's simply not worth the cost of updating/testing/certifying for these app creators. Not in a world where damn near every TV now has apps built in and Amazon/Roku sticks are like $20.

I believe the HBO Go app on PS3 was updated last month actually. That still begs the question though: why cut off connection? Unless the details FutureLarking who gave some insight into the possible reason is true, I can't think of a single reason since literally anything runs HBO Go these days. It's just using an app to connect to their server for authentication /security purposes. It's like HBO stopping their app from working on a iPhone 8. Apple has reason to block it but HBO doesn't.

FutureLarking said:
Adaptive bitrate streaming on Xbox 360 apps tended to use Microsoft's Smooth Streaming video format, because Microsoft had great tools for it and made money off selling it, so it was well supported on Xbox. But it required your server to run IIS, have licenses for the encoding tools. HLS didn't really exist / wasn't that big in those days so there wasn't native 360 support for it. At some point some clever fellow at Microsoft actually wrote a HLS parser in C# you could use for 360 apps, but I don't recall if HBO used it. But being able to drop that format entirely would certainly save server costs.

(Of course, a lot of apps didn't even use adaptive streaming at all, just fixed bitrate streams. Hell, I don't remember if HBO did, but you couldn't go too high on the bitrates, and the supported formats were very limited)

Thanks for the insight. That does of course make sense, but aren't these apps just portals really?

Khaos Prime said:
Slightly OT, but does anyone know if Bandersnatch works on PS3 or 360?

No idea, but there shouldn't be a reason why it wouldn't. All remotes for the PS3 have symbol buttons as well.

z1yin9c said:
side note... true detective is great again :)

Still have yet to watch it :/