Gaikai pre-empted this recently with the news that they expected to be bought.
Sony have this morning confirmed that last week they “entered into a definitive agreement” to acquire Gaikai Inc. for approximately USD 380 million.
“Through the acquisition,” says the statement, “SCE will establish a new cloud service, ensuring that it continues to provide users with truly innovative and immersive interactive entertainment experiences.”
“By combining Gaikai’s resources including its technological strength and engineering talent with SCE’s extensive game platform knowledge and experience, SCE will provide users with unparalleled cloud entertainment experiences,” said Andrew House, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
“SCE will deliver a world-class cloud-streaming service that allows users to instantly enjoy a broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of internet-connected devices.”
It’s interesting that House is stating that games will definitely feature, something we thought about a little while back when we first heard the rumours about Gaikai or OnLive. Basically, we said that a PS4 doesn’t technically need to exist – next-gen can all be streamed over the cloud to a PS3 or a Vita.
Read our earlier thoughts and see what you think, and whilst we said back just before E3 that such a deal would mainly be for PS1 and PS2 games, there’s little to suggest that SCE won’t really want to push this tech.
“If you have a PlayStation 3 or one of our speculative PlayStation Lite consoles you won’t need to buy a PS4,” we said back in May. “PS4 games will be available to you on your PS3 via streaming.”
“Sony can make hardware (and price it accordingly – i.e. bloody expensive) to those who want it, everyone else can switch on their PlayStation 3 and skip the expense and hassle of upgrading. The bank of PS4s at Sony will power the games, and stream them to your PS3 just like Gaikai does.”
“Sony might even miss the PlayStation 4 hardware phase altogether,” we continued, “that seems to be what Nanea Reeves was suggesting back in January. Skipping the costly first half of its life, when they’re selling at a loss and allowing half their users to stream on cheap hardware would be a huge money-spinner for them early on in the new console’s life.”
All that discussion suddenly seems a lot more real.
“SCE has built an incredible brand with PlayStation and has earned the respect of countless millions of gamers worldwide,” said David Perry, CEO of Gaikai Inc.
“We’re honored to be able to help SCE rapidly harness the power of the interactive cloud and to continue to grow their ecosystem, to empower developers with new capabilities, to dramatically improve the reach of exciting content and to bring breathtaking new experiences to users worldwide.”
The press release says that SCE will “establish a cloud service and expand its network business by taking full advantage of Gaikai’s revolutionary technology and infrastructure including data centers servicing dozens of countries and key partners around the world.”
Whilst the transaction is subject to certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, this is hugely exciting, especially after an E3 that was desperately in need of some new technology from Sony and Microsoft.
tonycawley
Thought I’d have a quick go of a game streaming service on my laptop, went for Onlive for no particular reason, I suppose because I know how to pronounce it.
My first experience of it, it seemed ok, but there is a definite and noticeable input lag, not massive, but noticeable. This would be crippling for some genres of games (shooters, fighters etc.) but for some it wouldn’t matter one iota (strategy, sim etc.)
Thinking about it, I don’t see how it could be sorted out. Input lag will always exist on streaming services, it’s impossible for it not to, so while that’s a factor (always will be imo) then gaming will suffer.
Alex C
True, but then most TVs (especially uncalibrated 3D ones) have HUGE lag. Compounding, yes, but lag’s always there.
For fighting games streaming is pointless, but for less twitchy ones it’ll be fine.
jimmy-google
I’d be quite happy with having streaming as an option. Let the ps4 be released as the full blown expensive hardware but also make ps4 games available through the ps3 as a streaming service. Sony don’t need to make a loss on hardware and all ps3 owners get some sort of next gen gaming access.
CNWLshadow
I don’t see streaming working, the bandwidth just isn’t there. Reports on the UK average speed vary; some say its in the region of 2Mbps, others say its 5Mbps. Right now my connection speed is 2.1Mbps, which isn’t enough to stream HD content.
wirralsman
They could easily just release all PSOne, Two, Three games via their cloud service, and select PS4 games, charge a fee to rent them for a month, or a fee to permanently buy, and have physical blu ray media for PS4 games whilst still maintaining a PC/samsung tv based service that will specifically deal with PC games (which could be brought to bravia TVs). So you have the existing business, the playstation business that will run only on PS4, and so two different streams of revenue. Could also tie this in with their Xperia phones / playstation suite (whatever it is now called) to offer psOne game streaming. Don’t forget the Vita of course!
sparkyscrum
Agreed. I can see them releasing the back catalogue of PS1/2/3 and PSP/Vita games this way. Could be part of a new tier Plus with free streaming of games for x amount a year/month? Or it could be buy a months access to the catalogue for £x but have different tier, with say PS1 games for £3 a month upto all games for £10 a month or £100 a year for access to everything? (note I have no idea what prices current streaming is but more what valve you could apply to the games)
Let the high end games be disc based but older games would require less bandwidth overall wouldn’t they?
Also Vita streaming would require less because unlike to a home console your just reaching a fixed format size so you know it only needs to be x to be ok?
Personally I’d love the ability to rent games to play on the Vita.
cc_star
Streaming lower tier games to a high tier device is the wrong way around to get the benifits out of efficiences offered by the tech, streaming high tier games to ‘dumber’ devices is the real advantage.
would be a missed opportunity by Sony if it was just a backwards compatibility machine when the tech allows the highest possible tier games to be playeed on practically anything.
Nickboss1
Yesterday i switch on my onlive console for the first time in months only to find that the games selection they have is still very small and not ones i want to play. I got my onlive console thinking i would get high end pc gaming experences like diablo 3 and dayz. Most of their games are old console ones i have already. If Sony go down this rout then its pc gaming for me.
cc_star
Very difficult for OnLive to include the latest PC games in an all inclusive bundle, a bit like how the newest film on Netflix has already had it’s first run on Sky for a year first.
Gaikai wasn’t set up to stream bundles of games it was a very different business model, of course Sony could change the proposition to be unrecognisable from that originally planned by the Gaikai team now.
Nickboss1
Thanks for the info I did’nt know that.
YOURMUMANDME
I really hope someone replies to this as I’m interested to know what others think.
Firstly, do Gaikai and OnLive own rights to stream games? By that I mean over any other Joe Bloggs with a pile of money and the know how to to do so. It seems odd that Sony wouldn’t just invest their own money into a project.
Secondly, is it possible that they have little intention of streaming games to a console and are merely muscling out virtual competition so that hardware and downloads prevail next gen? If Gaikai and OnLive do have exclusive rights to stream then surely this could be a huge possibility especially if Sony have invested a princely sum on their new console, one that is/might be heavily hardware focused.
damoxuk
Well the thing is gaikai have already lain all the groundwork for streaming. Invested, researched etc. It’s cheaper to buy a company what have already got the streaming sorted out (to a degree) than just starting from scratch yourself.
Gaikai as an alternative to Retail is good but as a relacement it won;t happen for Ps4 as it wouldn’t sell enough and investers will be pissed off if it had no retail options.
Nickboss1
I think onlive has a patent for cloud gaming so will be interesting to see what they do about Sony.
Sorry i dont think that answered your question.
YOURMUMANDME
I understand that Gaikai already have a foothold, what I was trying to say is that Sony may be snapping up cloud gaming before anyone else does and by doing so preventing anyone else from utilising it even if they have no intention to use it themselves.
@Nickboss1, this is what I thought, I wonder if it’s regional?
Nickboss1
Not sure mate? Would be interesting if MS buy out onlive with onlive having the patent.
cc_star
Cloud gaming is a game running on a machine which encodes the video & transmits that video to a remote device to play it.
Sony already did this with Remote Play, with that in mind I believe Gaikai must have something special, be it their encoding methods (presumably patented to be as low lag as possible), their scalable data centre infrastructure or their talent… or perhaps all 3.
Sony haven’t bought a streaming service just so as to gimp it making the next-gen heavily geared around a loss making console that makes money of licences paid per game sold. That’d be crazy because streaming will go on by other means leaving Sony to continue their loss making cycle with expensive hardware & expensive games. Turning games into a service will be the long term aim.
JBoo
“Sony might even miss the PlayStation 4 hardware phase altogether,” LoL:D The PS4 will come out with a disc format like the PS1&2&3. No way is the internet ready for everyone to enjoy this(Streaming) stuff now. If SONY could give people a choice tho of Disc based games & Downloadable games & Streaming games then that would be perfect i think + i hope they drop the ‘Gaikai’ name to:D
The Lone Steven
I hope they will implent Gaikai as an optional service as the UK is not ready for a streaming only console. Plus many people don’t have a strong enough connection to handle it. And they would probably lose 75% of their market if they did make the PS4 streaming only.
wirralsman
Was announced last week that my exchange is finally getting upgraded to FTTC by the end of 2013, so as long as Sony wait til then to release their streaming PS4, then I am happy. January 1st 2014 release please. Will book the time off work now…
Radiitz
Glad its not Onlive. I want Onlive to be left the hell alone. I want them to grow to become a competitor, instead of being merged with some giant console company where they are regarded as nothing more than an extra feature.
cc_star
Very good point… Although I think the pressure will be on a platform holder or more likely a cable company to buy OnLive now.