At CES this week, Sony announced an ambitious over-the-top pay-TV service that will launch sometime in 2014, making it the latest company to try competing with entrenched pay-TV operators. While Sony brings more assets to the table than did Intel (whose OnCue service never even got to market), the odds of Sony succeeding still seem extremely low to me.

To be fair, Sony's installed base of 25 million PlayStations, its early success with the PS4 and a broader base of connected TVs and Blu-ray players (which Sony says all total to 70 million in the U.S.) give the company a presence in homes that Intel didn't have. Sony also has both studio and TV production operations, plus a sizable back catalog, none of which Intel has. Importantly, Sony also has a well-recognized consumer brand (even if it's not exactly synonymous with innovation as, say, Apple's and Google's are), something Intel also didn't have.

Despite all of this, Sony will still encounter some of the same basic challenges Intel faced. First is gaining access to the full slate of cable programming it would require to be truly competitive with incumbent pay-TV operators. As Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich conceded, with zero subscribers to bring to the bargaining table, it couldn't get enough deals done to be viable. And that's just on the linear side; for digital/on-demand, obtaining rights are even more complicated. In Sony's case, negotiations would be further challenged because it's a competitor with its studio and TV production operations in a way that Intel wasn't.

But that's just part of the problem. A key issue, as I observed numerous times in relation to Intel's efforts, is that the pay-TV industry is saturated, and so the only way to gain a foothold is to take it away from an incumbent. And the only real way to do that is to appeal to subscribers' main pain point, which is pay-TV's high cost. But because programming is so expensive, Sony's - or anyone else's - ability to offer meaningfully lower monthly subscription rates or bundling flexibility, is virtually non-existent.

As a result, Sony would be left trying to compete solely on the basis of better features (e.g. cloud DVR, tighter integration of OTT services, etc.) which are nice, but not sufficient to drive significant subscribers to shift providers. In fact, the best features-based differentiator any upstart pay-TV operator could offer is really strong integration with mobile devices, but since Sony has no presence in the U.S. smartphone or tablet market, this opportunity is unavailable.

Last, but not least, it's not as if incumbent pay-TV operators are standing still. The biggest operators are rapidly innovating with TV Everywhere, mobile integrations, improved content discovery and other developments that leverage their role as broadband ISPs. No question there's still lots of room for improvement and efforts vary widely by operator. But Comcast's announcement earlier this week that it added video subscribers in Q4 '13 could be a signal that improved features and access to content do indeed have a tangible impact on attracting and retaining subscribers.

Ever since broadband went mass market, there has been incessant talk of new competitors emerging to offer bona fide alternatives to incumbent pay-TV operators. Sony looks like it will be the latest to try its hand. Maybe it has a few unannounced tricks up its sleeve that will alter the dynamics described above. But I'm guessing it doesn't. If I'm right, Sony is poised to become the latest company to realize how strong the pay-TV fortress is.