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

Sony needs good pub....all the good pub they can get. That's why I'm confident what I bought will work with the PS4 (or whatever it's gonna be called)
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.
 
Cloud gaming is flatout bad!

You lose any control over the games you paid for, you can lose access at anytime for any number of reasons.
You have a lot of lag, it looks like a youtube video, it cuts out a large amount of the worlds pop ect.!

It will not allow games that look better than what is practical for a mid/low PC at the time (cloud gaming does not mean things stop costing money!)

Wired internet infrastructure does not follow moore's law (unlike what one of the deluded cloud gaming PRs said). it takes ages and huge amounts of money to upgrade it!

It takes on the order of 1.6Gbits to have real time encoded near lossless 1080P at 60FPS!

Not only are phones and tablets not well suited to the controls of console or PC games but wireless internet could not be more unsuited to game streaming! It is shared bandwidth!

If you have the bandwidth for cloud gaming it would not take long at all just to download the game instead!

Reality is different to what the (head in the) cloud crowd thinks.

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
 
To have such a big huge megastore you need an OS.
Thanks to competition MS can now come with its market place which I'm confident a few year ago would have felt under the regulators attacks.

Istore is tight to iOS, Google play to Android, windows 8 market place... obviously to windows.

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

Shared-Memory.jpg


Was discussed here on B3D briefly

Quoting Shifty from that thread:
The patent itself does not look applicable to the PS3. It covers a processor with a memory interface unit that can be changed between working as an SMP extension to a processor, or as a conventional node within a distributed processing network. It's the former that is something special, the idea that you could have two discrete processing packages, one in a console and one in a TV say, that work as one processor with coherency across memory accesses and data sharing. To the system, there is one processor, a Cell with 2 PPUs and 12 SPUs, or whatever it is.

Currently Cell does not have a BIC capable of switching between SMP and distributed-computing modes. I don't think such a thing can be emulated by a SPE. Even if it could, there's no connection that allows two discrete device CPUs to communicate at full bus speeds. The patent uses Cell's current FlexIO BW as an example, that the BIC unit can't exceed 35 GB/s out+25 GB/s in, but the fastest port on a PS3 is HDMI at 10 gigabits, one way AFAIK. The gigabit network port would only allow for distributed computing models, which would require custom software written to support it. I know of nothing in development that allows 50+ GB/s communication between devices. You'd need something like a RAMBUS port!

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.
 
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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.

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 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...
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.
 
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.


People would be pissed......

and rightfully so.

Maybe not you...probably because you understand the reasons why this would be difficult....

But common everyday people don't care about such technical reason....They just know they bought their stuff from Sony, and Sony better have their sh17 when they want it.

That's a customer's always right scenereo I was describing earlier.
Perception is reality, Shifty Geezer.....basically.
 
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. ;)
 
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. ;)

I understand, and you're right...

But now, the stakes are getting higher for Sony.....alot higher...and on several different levels.


We'll see how Sony handles it....if nothing else, it will be interesting.

EDIT IN.....Most, if not all PSP GO games (downloads) work with the VITA
 
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What would be the point of PS1 game streaming? Why not just download them and run them in an emulator?
 
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..

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.
 
PC + Vita + custom Playstation Mobile app

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.
 
And this is ups the stakes quite a bit to.

http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/6/30/3127602/gaikai-google-nacl-native-client

In regards to the latency/lag, there was some discussion on the x264 list some time back about this. And they said they did some modification to x264 for a client that was not OnLive, but did the same thing.
They also claimed that what they did for this client, was a much better solution than OnLive was doing.

Could be this client was Gaikai, just pure speculation on my part.

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.
 
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