HBO Now to require subscription to one of HBO’s partner’s services

Well this is a bit of a downer for the cord cutting part of all of us.

The Verge reported this week that HBO Now won’t be available for everyone with $15 a month to spare. A subscription to the forthcoming service will in fact require a subscription to a select handful of cable services or the purchase of an Apple TV (at least for now).

These details were a bit mum during Apple’s big announcement but in the days following as more information became more public, it slowly sunk the hearts of a few excited fans who were expecting that they would be able to stream Game of Thrones (legally) without any strings attached.

Adding even more confusion to the mix, cable service provider Cablevision announced this week that it plans on partnering with HBO and offer its HBO Now service to current customers. The details are a little vague, and the differences between just paying more for a normal HBO upgrade with access to HBO Go as opposed to signing up for HBO Now are a bit unclear. Attempts to contact representatives at Cablevision did not answer questions related to the deal.

While Apple TV’s price did drop, it sounds like HBO Now will require a purchase of this device before new customers will be able to access HBO Now without a subscription.