Sling TV Adding More Channels To Base Package, Now Works On Xbox One

Dish’s standalone streaming Sling TV service continues to add more value to its $20/month subscription price, with the announcement today that Sling is now accessible through Xbox One consoles and that four channels are being added to the standard Sling lineup.

The four upcoming additions to the base package are A&E, History, H2, and Lifetime. When these launch, that will bring the standard tier of Sling service up to 20 channels of live TV.

As much as we support anything that disrupts the standard pay-TV model and offers much-needed competition in this market, remember that while Sling does offer the ability to rewind and pause some live TV streams, it disables that functionality for most of the channels in its lineup.

Additionally, while a handful of Sling channels allow you to go back and watch shows that have aired over the previous few days, there is no real DVR function. So if you miss a show, odds are you’ll have to wait for a rerun (and catch it live) or buy the episode from Amazon or iTunes.

Sling is also launching two new add-on packages of channels, each for $5. The “Lifestyle Extra” currently includes truTV, Cooking Channel, DIY and WE tv. Two more channels — FYI and LMN — will soon be added. Then there’s the “World News Extra” package that includes Bloomberg TV, HLN, Euro News, France 24, NDTV 24/7, News 18 and Russia Today.

Sling is finally available on gaming consoles now that it’s streaming on Xbox One, where users can also get a free month-long trial of Sling.

Considering that this launch is flagged as an Xbox “exclusive,” and since Sony has its own streaming service in the offing, we aren’t holding out much hope that we’ll see Sling on PS4 anytime in the immediate future.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist