Sony Computer Entertainment Acquires Cloud Gaming Company Gaikai For $380 Million

Okay, that is the entire game.

 

Taht's a pretty ill-informed decision. The world is full of incompatibilities. You can buy a Canon EF lens now knowing it'll be a comatible with future cameras, but when Canon switched lens format in 1987 and rendered all those old Canon FD lenses redundant, it didn't lose them their business. You can buy a bike from a manufacturer, and then buy a replacement, and find your seat post isn't compatible. Wait long enough and none of your old components will be compatible. You can buy a TV with an analogue tuner and then find the world switches to digital making that purchase pretty useless and you have to buy a digital add-on. You can buy a PC to run software, and then buy a new PC years later that won't run the same software. You can buy a game for your Android tablet, buy a new, upgraded Android tablet, and find the game no longer runs. You can buy music on a download music service only for that service to die out and you lose all that music. So why assume a game bought for one console will run on another?

Sony can add value with streamed BC (although if it doesn't perform well, the consumer is no better off than not having any BC), but it isn't expected, unless consumers are oblivious to their everyday experiences of products changing over time and nothing lasting forever.

And how are Sony going to execute BC over Gaikai anyway? There's no easy answer I can see, meaning there's considerable reason to think it won't happen. All the hopes and expectations of the consumer count for nothing if its technically/economically impossible. It'd be better for Sony to offer a BC add-on, or just expect owners to keep their PS3.

 

why has this anti-gaming-cloud mentality that feels like an entrenched On-live attitude developed? ive seen this across multiple sites and forums...

this idea that people will either be forced to choose between disc, DD, or cloud OR eventually only inside the cloud... and that this choice/force of cloud will cause people to lose access to their games???

#biggerpicture

why cant we have a plan to allow cloud play once a disc or DD purchase has been made? or even the possibility of a netflix style service? no one ever complains of losing movies there because we all understand the service

why do people see cloud gaming as one or the other instead of the possibility of a service that can support our current disc/DD situation? local games at home, cloud games on the go, accommodated by transferrable & cloud saves -- weve already seen a different yet similar mentality to this with ps3 + psVITA

 

ChromeOS or just chrome it self is probably enough, especially sine there already is a Gaikai Chrome Native Client.

Put Chrome as the browser on PS4 and you can use the native client to support all Gaikai services. Then have PS4 do its own mumbo jumbo HAL OS thingy for native games if you like.
Or just do everything over Gaikai, then the Games just needs to run on whatever Gaikai stuff runs on, ie Windows, Mac, Linux etc etc.

Basically what you buy at home is a STB for all your Gaikai services ie no need for expensive CPU/GPU in PS5

 

Remember the Sony patents for a scalable 1ppu +4spu modules?



Was discussed here on B3D briefly

Quoting Shifty from that thread:

Im thinking something along these lines of multi module add-in cards, along with NVidia GPUs, in each server could well provide the setup required for cost effective backwards compatibility in the cloud and greatly simplify any emulation required.

On another note, is there any use for cloud/distributed computing in helping to render games alongside the host machine? Im thinking things like complex AI,physics,game logic etc, freeing up rescources locally, but have no idea how latency sensitive such things are or potential bandwidth requirements.

 

I do not disagree and I think that when it comes to disc based games the general consensus would be not to expect compatibility with the next gen hardware. I do not know though if that would apply to on line purchases.

For some reason, when you have bought it online and have just a digital copy on you HDD or cloud or whatever, then it seems that people might be less tolerable to not having it work on new hardware.

I think with how portable music and movies have become now, and you can play them on you PC, phone, tablet, fridge (coming soon) where you have either a file you just copy over devices or stream through skype or whatever, people have now been accustomed that a digital copy should just work everywhere. Again, I'm not saying it is right, but I can understand why it would make sense to people why they would have such expectations...

 

Would it not make sense for the PS3/4 itself to become a delivery node for the network? That way you could take your mobile device (Vita, Tablet, Phone etc) and stream games from your own platform. Like a version of directplay that works and is not reliant on the internet backbone.

 

I agree with that, and expect Sony Ps content to become platform agnostic in the near future. But it'll be via a framework, same as every other hardware agnostic platform, and not via emulation. My PSN downloads likely won't work on PS4. I don't believe the masses will be up in arms over that this time around. Next time, when everyone elses's content is portable, people will complain. But not this time, is my guess.

 

I wonder if Sony would be up for a similar service to BT with its FON network. Allowing you to stream games from your PS4 to complete strangers devices with the incentive that your either earn money from it or are re-compensated in some other way e.g. SEN credits or something.

 

But these same people buy PSP downloads and don't grumble when they don't run on PS3. These same people buy PS3's that don't run their old PS2 software. As long as the store categorises their existing downloads as PS3, and has a separate section for PS4 or PSN tiles, then the situation is no different to what the customer is already used to.

This is all in that other BC Importance thread, so I'll stop repeating it here.

 

What would be the point of PS1 game streaming? Why not just download them and run them in an emulator?

 

PC + Vita + custom Playstation Mobile app

 

Afaik they did offer an adaptor that eased the pain.

What Sony gains by buying Gaikai could be enormousness, but knowing sony they will screw it up.

First of all, ease of offering software on all their platforms without having to develop it for every platform from scratch.. For example a Browser!

Second, the chance to begin again, on off world colonies... ehmm the chance to offer PSN(PS3) games on the PS4 and every platform they choose to do so, from Android to PC. BC and beyond.

 

Having played onlive both wireless and wired I can tell that wireless is a bad idea.
It already have a negative effect on Diablo3...

And with regard toRobertR1 comment about SOny buying an infrastructure and a tech I would be more wary about Gakai infrastructure now. It ain't Onlive, they are not running the service, they provide demo. I would suspect that in that conditions even their limited resources are not spread thin.

By the way Gakai while doing better than Onlive (for now) has higher bandwidth requirement than Onlive. Gaikai refuses to run at my current location.

Honestly I wish I had all the info about both companies but I would bet that Onlive was a better choice, may be significantly more expansive though (the service is up and running, apps are ready, they have subscribers so a paying user base, etc.)

i can't help but think that Gaikai is close to vapor ware at this stage / not ready for prime.

 

Just to followup

http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/249

It talks about reducing latency encoding for x264 (main post) and that it was done for a startup that was not OnLive (look in the comments).

 

Did somebody read the article till the end I mean the "it's all open source" part.
Either way I don't get it or even if gaikai is the small start up the article they don"t own the tech.
It's not a competitive advantage for anybody.