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

The encoder is just a small part of the technology package Gaikai and onlive has.

 

I want to know what this means for LG & Samsung cloud gaming services that are going to be powered by Gaikai. It does seem that Samsung beta is still on (http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/4/3137144/gaikai-cloud-gaming-samsung-smart-tv-beta-launched). I'm glad that Gaikai has adopted Nvidia Geforce GRID. This will dramatically reduce cloud gaming cost going forward. I myself have had a better expereince with Gaikai than OnLive espeically when it comes to latency and picture quaility.

Gaikai used to use CPU-driven encoding using x.256. However, they are swtiching to the built in Geforce GRID H.256 encoder directly on the GPU, which is faster and more efficent. OnLive is using a custom H.256 encoder chip, which doesn't have the same quality as Gaikai. OnLive does make good use of bandwidth. However, picture quality suffers as a result. This will go away once the players adapt the H.265 codec (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.265) and have hardware/software encoders/decoder avaiable for it. The bandwidth rquirements will be cut almost in half while preserving quality.

 

1) If it plays online but is a horrible experience, how does that mitigate your position on avoiding Sony

2) You were never sold content on PS3 as being compatible with PS4, so why would you then boycott content? Being unable to play...Flower on PS4 is no different to being unable to play it on Vita.

 

If they offer an optional BC module for the PS4, will you be satisfied?

 

When the PS2 came out BC was a big deal to me, yet I never played a ps1 game on it, when the PS3 came out guess what happened? Thought it was going to be a big deal again and it wasn't.

Only thing I want is to keep my psn account.

 

If they offer a BC module that has extra computing resources, by the gods, it should do more than just play PS3 games !

 

Speaking of which, I don't know how they would merge the Gaikai accounts with PSN accounts...
I can only imagine with 95 million on PSN, the new users trying to create an account will have a hard time creating a username:

You gaikai account ZeroCool is conflicting with an existing PSN user, please chose a new username.

Username: asdfasdf1234
Sorry, asdfasdf1234 is already taken.

Username: asdfasdf1235
Sorry, asdfasdf1235 is already taken.

 

How many Gaikai users are there today ? I thought existing Gaikai servers are just private labelled services ? e.g., EA using Gaikai for game demoes on their own network.

 

It's quite simple concept, you utilize associated accounts or a genuine federated login system. This would work similar to how MS allows with their Bing Rewards program where you can login using Facebook or your MS Live account.

 

Quite right.

But I am under the impression that Gaikai doesn't have its own user database per se. It's a backend service used by Samsung, EA and other organizations.

 

For PSN only games I can see BC being a big deal. I've invested a bunch in Pinball Arcade and Zen Pinball and those tables are not going to be any less playable just because it is suddenly next gen. I won't be surprised if I have to keep a PS3 around to play them as that is how consoles have always worked, but it will be unfortunate none the less.

Cheers

 

... Or they can do a cross-buy deal. I remember if you buy Zen Pinball 2 on PS3, you get the other version (Vita) free too.

 

I am very much wondering if we will see next-gen upgrades gor games like these. This would be the first console generation where such a think could be lucrative, as you only port the engine and then can keep selling your DLC. Particularly for this game, if it would allow me to play it in 1080@60fps in 3D, that would be amazing, as there are few games where 3D is such an obvious improvement, but the PS3 version degrades visually and above all lags a bit too much for comfort when in3 D mode.

In the meantime I am very happy to have cross-buy with the Vita version, which is fantastic (looks great, plays even better).

 

They claim over 50 million unique gamers played a month.. http://gaikai.com/

Server coverage


http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/11/gaikai-will-be-fee-free-utilize-300-data-centers-in-the-us/

300 Datacenters in US

 

Having found that image (Gaikai > history > August 2010), there's no explanation of it whatsoever, so it's hardly a reference point for anything.

 

All the same it may be enough for the start of a new console platform, which starts at 0.

 

Gaikai is a scary concept. If they virtualize PS4 and could deliver a reasonable experience, it means I can continue playing not just on Vita but on Android and PC/Mac web browsers too. I can practically game anywhere. Would love an iOS client subscription model, like Music Unlimited.

For marketers, they can embed the game, or even replay saved games in reviews. For users, they can pick up their game instantly, right from the reviews say during DLC promotion. There are lots of opportunities extending BR and B&M shopping experiences too. Hope to see spectating (live or saved games) on the new Home.


I see huge challenges (some may be very difficult or insurmountable) and opportunities at the same time.