If you haven’t heard the news, Sony will be taking over the popular internet game streaming company Gaikai. Sony bought controlling shares valued at 380 million dollars in order to take over the company. Gakai is known for instant cloud gaming generally done in a bowser on a computer, but there is a lot that Sony can gain from what Gakai brings to the table.
Now if you haven’t used Gaikai, it works like this: you choose what game you want and that game is then rendered on a gaming computer and is then sent back to your computer in a video type format. All inputs you enter when playing the game travel back in forth between your computer and the render computer. The biggest gripe is the slight input lag that is experienced when playing a game, and the fact that you need to be connected to the internet at all times while playing the game.
So what can Gaikai do for Sony and the consumers, actually quite a bit can be possible with Gaikai’s streaming service.
Normally when you want to play a demo or an arcade game you have to wait for the game to download to your machine before you can begin playing. If you can stream the game instantly and download the game in the background while playing, you would effectively eliminate all download times. There may be some bandwidth issues for some customers, but that number will be small as most consumers who play online with their console are running a decent broadband connection that would be able to handle streaming and downloading at the same time.
Gaikai will also give Sony the ability to allow lower powered devices to play newer games. Imagine being able to play PS3 games on your tablet or smart phone, over 4G or wifi, anywhere at any time. This would give Sony a huge amount of consumers that Microsoft and Nintendo would not have and could give Sony the boost in revenue they need.
I fully expect Sony to take advantage of their newest purchase and I’m excited to see the possibilities that this service will bring for consumers. I’m hoping Sony actually uses Gaikai to its true potential and doesn’t just forget about the purchase.
