Just before E3, rumors swirled something fierce about Sony acquiring a video game streaming service. The two big names, Gaikai and OnLive were both on the table, although most sources seemed to point towards Gaikai as the expo neared. But then, E3 came and went, without any kind of announcement.
That announcement hit today. Sony has purchased cloud gaming service Gaikai to the tune of $380 million. In a time where Sony is reporting some of its worst financials in its history, this is a bold move, and one that gives some kind of hint at where Sony thinks the industry is moving.
So what does this all mean? The leading theory at the moment is that Sony is going to forgo traditional backwards compatibility for the PS4 in favor of making the entirety of the Playstation catalogues accessible in the form of a cloud gaming service. This means that 1) Sony can save some hardware costs on the PS4 without feeling the need to make it compatible with PS3 games and 2) every game from the Playstation 1, 2 and 3 could be playable via streaming. The implications behind that idea are pretty huge, and is incredibly forward thinking on Sony’s part.
What do you guys think of this purchase? Do you agree with the prevalent rumor about Sony’s future plans? Go!
Source – CVG
I think this can be a great idea on nearly every front, except the obvious one: what if there’s no internet?
I’d personally hope that they make it possible to say, go to a friends house and download the games to my new Playstation, or evne to a USB stick of some sort, so I can go home and play it without connection. (Not that I don’t have internet, just speaking metaphorically.)
I actually got into a discussion with someone who said they thought Sony would go into just streaming, and not even use CD’s for their next console, but I personally think the streaming market isn’t big enough for a major console to transition like that. Though I wouldn’t doubt if they released like a “Playstation Stream” of sorts where you could just do that, as the lowest costing “PS4”
It’s interesting, but if this is where the industry is heading I guess this is a great move for Sony. Adopt early, find the best method to work with, etc. The idea of streaming older games sounds like a solid move but I wonder how the pricing (or maybe even redeeming) of these games would work.