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Sony gaming division’s explanation of its £242m purchase of Gaikai is that it’ll be creating some sort of “cloud-based interactive entertainment service,” although it seems much more likely it’ll eventually be used to offer a form of backward-compatibility with older PlayStation titles whenever Sony gets around to launching PS4.
Gaikia, the less-talked-about competitor to streaming gaming service OnLive, uses powerful servers to play games, then streams the visual data to your display, whether that’s your PC, tablet or TV. All you need is some sort of controller to make it all work, which, if you don’t mind a bit of lag, is seen as one possible future for the entire games industry.
The question is how wide Sony might be able to spread this new tech around its existing offerings. A PlayStation4 game you can play at home, then sign in with your Gaikai account to continue playing via The Cloud, using your PS Vita or tablet as the display? That’s the dream, although the reality is it’ll probably end up trying to convince you to pay £6.99 to play Crash Bandicoot again in the year 2016. [PR via TNW]
I love those gaming services based on hope and potential. Could-based services seem to be offered by all the manufacturers now
Probably one of the smartest moves Sony has made in a long time.
Cumulonimbus used to be my favourite type of Could. But this is my new favourite Could.
Personally I prefer the cirrus could. I cloud spend ages thinking about the shapes they make.
I tell you, you look away from your site for half an hour, and this happens! Gah.
The little Gaikai that could?
I’d be perfectly happy with backwards-compatibility based on a streaming service, but I would rather like to know how Sony are planning on addressing the issues around re-purchasing games. If they’re planning on making PS3 games available through an online service, will we need to buy them again despite having them in their shiny boxes on our shelves? I can’t really think of a reliable way around this.
Imagine if they used it to stream PS2 games straight to the Vita. It’d be the greatest console the world has ever seen!