Sony To Acquire Cloud Gaming Company Gaikai for $380 Million

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Sony To Acquire Cloud Gaming Company Gaikai for $380 Million

Posted by Soulskill on Monday July 2, 2012 @04:27AM from the streamed-gaming-has-officially-arrived dept.

Sony announced today that they've entered into an agreement to acquire Gaikai, Dave Perry's cloud gaming company, for $380 million. Sony said they will use the company to "establish a new cloud service" which will provide a "broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of internet-connected devices." The Digital Foundry blog discusses what this means for the gaming industry: "What the deal represents is acceptance from a major console platform holder that gaming is fast approaching its own Netflix or iPod moment — the point where convenience and accessibility to content becomes more important than the inevitable hit to fidelity demanded by the underlying technology. ... The quality of the experience comes down to two specific factors: image integrity and control response. The former is going to require significant increases in bandwidth, because the current 5mbps level needs to rise to 10-15mbps to really solve the artifacting issues that are present in the first-gen cloud systems as they stand right now. But in a world where top-end UK internet connections have leapt from 2mbps to 100mbps in less than a decade, this is only a matter of time."

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could also mean Sony made another bonehead play. by swschrad · 2012-07-02 04:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

Sony is notorious for awful takeovers, and this one could also turn into a black hole.

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if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Maps and textures instead of video feeds by vlm · 2012-07-02 04:34 · Score: 1

The quality of the experience comes down to two specific factors: image integrity and control response. The former is going to require significant increases in bandwidth, because the current 5mbps level needs to rise to 10-15mbps to really solve the artifacting issues that are present in the first-gen cloud systems as they stand right now
Wouldn't it be infinitely cheaper and just as effective at keeping the upgrade treadmill running and the pirated copys stopped to merely upload maps and textures, rather than trying to run a whole video connection across the net? Essentially MMORPG already have no RPG unless you count middle school playground as RPG, now just remove the MM, leaving a "O" game?

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
1. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 04:59 · Score: 0
  
  It means you can run PC games on a console. The console's GPU and CPU no longer limit the game experience. A PS3 could play Orbis games ... oh, wait, this is a fucking stupid idea.
2. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by alen · 2012-07-02 05:00 · Score: 2
  
  but then it wouldn't be as cool
  streamed bits are a lot cooler than playing them local
  it's like streaming a movie vs watching a blu ray. the streamed is so much better
3. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by tepples · 2012-07-02 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  It means you can run PC games on a console.
  Not if A. Sony refuses to support mouse and keyboard the way Microsoft does, or B. Sony declines to accept your favorite PC game to the service.
4. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by DreadPiratePizz · 2012-07-02 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  The idea behind Cloud gaming is that you can have one device that can play games on many platforms and complexities. The whole point is to do the heavy rendering and calculations on the server and stream the result to the client, so that you don't have to keep upgrading when a new console comes out, or when a game's hardware requirements go up.
5. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by vlm · 2012-07-02 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, that was kind of my point that bandwidth is much more expensive than video cards. Lets say they're streaming out high def video, so you need a decent reasonably recent nvidia card just to run vdpau or whatever the windows equivalent is. So the net change in hardware cost is zero yet the net change in bandwidth cost is immense.
  ON the other hand, as I guy who likes strategy gaming and (real) RPGs and hex based military combat something like a "VNC" server access to a hosted game is kinda interesting. Theoretically I could pop into a Civ6 game from desktop, tablet, or phone. The killer problem is how to handle all the different screen resolutions.
  Also I imagine the temptation to "share" an account must be immense.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
6. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:53 · Score: 0
  
  when I think streamed bits I think cold filtered, artesian spring.
7. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by mypalmike · 2012-07-02 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  > Wouldn't it be infinitely cheaper and just as effective at keeping the upgrade treadmill running and the pirated copys stopped to merely upload maps and textures, rather than trying to run a whole video connection across the net?
  The video-connection approach means any game engine can be adapted to or built for this model fairly easily without any specialized content download infrastructure.
  
  --
  There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
8. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by SScorpio · 2012-07-02 06:45 · Score: 2
  
  To make a mouse and keyboard work on a PS3 you need to put them into one of the PS3's USB boards, or pair them via Bluetooth. Only Unreal Tournament 3 supports actually playing a game with them. But they do work, just like they were compatible with the PS2.
9. Re:Maps and textures instead of video feeds by gman003 · 2012-07-02 07:14 · Score: 2
  
  High-end, not really. Even the current batch of Intel integrated GPUs can handle 1080p video decompression. You can do it with a $50 bottom-of-the-line GeForce.
  Gaming, though, still requires a decent GPU. $100-$150 for the low end. So hardware costs won't decrease if you just stream the game data (as opposed to streaming video).
  But what *would* matter is latency. If the rendering is done IN THE CLOUD!, that means latency becomes an even bigger deal. Instead of just having to deal with controller->computer->monitor latency, you're dealing with controller->computer->SERVER->computer->monitor latency. And since computer->server latency is going to be in the realm of 20-60ms, I would venture to say that twitchy games are going to suffer *heavily*. Civilization VI or Final Fantasy XV will be fine, but Quake V or Unreal Tournament 2014? No way.
  Just to pre-empt a potential argument, NO, current multiplayer games don't have that latency issue for most things. Currently, clients handle the rendering and input. They also run a shadow copy of the server to "predict" the response it will give, so it can give feedback *immediately*. The client doesn't send a constant stream of "OK, he moved the mouse over a pixel", it sends a "he just fired his weapon from position X at angle Y, who does he hit?". The server does sanity checks to prevent cheating (like going all the way across the map in one frame), and the client will periodically send "I'm at position X, angle Y", but the bulk of the time, the client is the one deciding what the player will see happening. Which can (and does) cause problems when they don't communicate right, but they've gotten good at recovering from that.
Latency is more of an issue. by medv4380 · 2012-07-02 04:34 · Score: 1

If my controller cant respond because of random latency issues I won't use their service. How they are planning to address latency would be more important to me. Games like Arkham Asylum and City only work because the you don't need fine controller actions to play. My brother can competently play while looking away from the screen and just clicking the mouse at random. Real games that require real timing and control don't work well when latency is involved.
1. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by AaronLS · 2012-07-02 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed. For any type of real time game, latency has more impact in this architecture. Often with an FPS, there is client side prediction which emulates what the server models. You hit a key and your computer models the reaction so you see the result/feedback immediately. Sometimes you see artifacts where something is repositioned 50ms later, but that only happens when another action that your client wasn't aware of, another player's action, changes things on the server. In most cases, it takes 50ms for anything the server does to arrive at your client, and usually anything you do is immediate.
  With a streaming game service, you hit the key, but your computer has no client side prediction because it's just receiving a video stream. You get no feedback. Your keystroke goes to the server(maybe 50ms), and then the server updates its model, and you see the result (50 ms on the way back). Anything as simple as moving the mouse will take 100ms to see the result. For alot of things this would not be a big deal, but mouse movement, that is something that is usually smooth and we are used to it being responsive. It would be like when your computer gets slow and your mouse jerks around.
  You could solve this be trying to create some sort of standardized game client, and games would have to be coded in modules so client side predictions and client side interfaces could be transferred. But this would me the client is doing rendering. However you lose two of the main benefits of streamed gaming: 1) Preventing client side hacks like aimbots and walling, 2) Centralizing rendering.
  Centralized rendering I think is cool, because if you think about how much idle graphics hardware there is at any point in time, for every person playing a PC game, there's probably ten graphics cards somewhere else in the world sitting idle at that moment. If you centralized that, then it would be like you were playing with 4 graphics cards and still have room to eliminate some hardware to reduce cost. Games designed for this system could offer a much greater level of detail.
2. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by tepples · 2012-07-02 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  Sometimes you see artifacts where something is repositioned 50ms later, but that only happens when another action that your client wasn't aware of, another player's action, changes things on the server.
  And in something like a fighting game, "another player's action" may happen multiple times a second. How should a game work around that?
3. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:28 · Score: 1
  
  There was a paper a while back where an author showed that most video games, when considered as end-to-end systems, had latency of well over 100ms between a button press and that action being reflected on the display. Even 'fast' video games, like Street Fighter, had over 60ms latency. Someone who is willing to dive into the guts of a system and streamline this process can definitely buy themselves enough time for a network call.
4. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  "Press key, process key, display result" will always be faster than "press key, send key to The Cloud, process key, receive frame from The Cloud, display frame". This might work almost well enough for turn-based games, or other games where lag is not a problem. For most games, it won't work. My games have enough lag as it already is, I'm not interested in adding any more.
5. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  Try playing an FPS on OnLive with a wired internet connection... I found it to be very playable.
6. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by medv4380 · 2012-07-02 08:17 · Score: 1
  
  How about games like Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden (excluding 3), and other more Timing based games where a small timing mistake is a nice big game over. You could rewrite them to be more forgiving but gamers didn't exactly like Ninja Gaiden 3 being watered down so that anyone and their grandma could play. Typical FPS have a lot of built in slack designed around latency driven environment. Back when FPS were LAN only they were a lot less forgiving. In the end things like Halo feel like you're moving though mud compared to games in the prior Lan only generation.
7. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-07-02 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  How about games like Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden (excluding 3), and other more Timing based games where a small timing mistake is a nice big game over.
  a. Humans aren't that fast.
  b. A lot of the button pushes people do are a chain of reflex actions and not a direct 1:1 response to what happens on the screen.
  It works better than you might expect.
  
  --
  
  "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
8. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by medv4380 · 2012-07-02 13:45 · Score: 1
  
  And that kind of think is what has lead to the rash of easy casual games. Now where did I put that ointment.
9. Re:Latency is more of an issue. by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-07-02 14:06 · Score: 1
  
  What I'm describing would, for example, apply to the original Super Mario Brothers.
  
  --
  
  "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I dont' get the by future+assassin · 2012-07-02 04:35 · Score: 1, Flamebait

cloud since its nothing other than a "cool" name for remote storage but I can see how all these companies are jumping on it. They haven't yet been able to fully crush the first sale doctorine so just stick everything in the cloud and viola no more software resales. Unfortunatly all it takes is a few % of the 6 billion of us to keep these fuckers going and keep gouging us.

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by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
1. Re:I dont' get the by phantomfive · 2012-07-02 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  The 'advantage' of the cloud is that you don't need to keep finding a way to create new features to get your users to buy an upgrade. They will keep paying you over and over, month after month, for the same software. Salesforce.com is the prime example.
  
  That may sound like a joke, but it is the #1 reason companies put their services on the cloud. There are other advantages, that actually do benefit the end-user in some cases, but that is not why cloud companies exist.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As ISPs Move Toward Charging-by-the-Bit... by CanHasDIY · 2012-07-02 04:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

Content distributors move toward bandwidth-devouring "cloud" services.

If ever one needed evidence that modern capitalism is an exercise in bleeding consumers dry, here ya go.

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
1. Re:As ISPs Move Toward Charging-by-the-Bit... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  Content distributors move toward bandwidth-devouring "cloud" services.
  If ever one needed evidence that modern capitalism is an exercise in bleeding consumers dry, here ya go.
  Hasn't this always been the case? Charge the customers as much as they will tolerate, and when they start complaining, back down only enough to get them to buy from you again?
  Bonus CAPTCHA: "markets"
2. Re:As ISPs Move Toward Charging-by-the-Bit... by Anachragnome · 2012-07-02 13:48 · Score: 1
  
  "If ever one needed evidence that modern capitalism is an exercise in bleeding consumers dry, here ya go."
  Oh, c'mon man. Cut them a little slack. Maybe they're just expanding into the Asian market.
Re:could also mean Sony made another bonehead play by Moheeheeko · 2012-07-02 04:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

When you are in your death throes, you tend to make bad decisions, Sony is no exception.
Then they'll choose games accordingly by tepples · 2012-07-02 04:43 · Score: 2

How they are planning to address latency would be more important to me. Games like Arkham Asylum and City only work because the you don't need fine controller actions to play.
I imagine that they'll handle it just as you said: choose games in genres not associated with "fine controller actions". It'd be the same way that mobile developers have had to choose games in genres not requiring "fine controller actions" due to the limits of a completely flat touch screen.
Sony's take on cloud computing by turkeyfeathers · 2012-07-02 04:44 · Score: 2

They could use it to put rootkits on your computer... from a cloud!
1. Re:Sony's take on cloud computing by game+kid · 2012-07-02 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  Nah, in this case they'll root their own computers and stream you the video of the resulting chaos.
  
  --
  You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
2. Re:Sony's take on cloud computing by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 07:28 · Score: 0
  
  Due to the "piracy" distribution potential of "the cloud", the ability to access Gaikai remotely has been removed with this firmware security upgrade, and your hardware is herewith renamed "The Brick". By clicking "I Agree", you forfeit any legal claim you may have with Gaikai, SONY, or anyone else SONY has been paid to absolve. Please refer to http://www.SONY.customer.fu to see our new hardware and new proprietary media standards ...auto click engages in 3-2-1...
My Internet Sucks by AxeMurder · 2012-07-02 04:47 · Score: 1

"because the current 5mbps level needs to rise to 10-15mbps" I wish I could get 5mbps for less than $100 a month. (up to 5mbps is in fact the fastest I can get if I'm willing to pay ~$165 a month) It's not like I live in the middle of nowhere either, I live in the SF bay area. Car analogy: I'm driving a car built in the 90s and they are telling me their new road won't work until people update their 2000 cars to 2010 cars and I already can't afford a 2000 car due to markups and nobody will sell a 2010 car in my neighborhood anyway.
1. Re:My Internet Sucks by bhcompy · 2012-07-02 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  And because it's the Bay Area, it's probably NIMBYs. "I don't want my street torn up so you can install fiber, my property value might temporarily decrease". Either way, with bandwidth caps the new rage, this type of service is a risky investment.
2. Re:My Internet Sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:08 · Score: 0
  
  I live in the SFBA, too. I haven't heard any plans for them installing fiber on my street. I'd be all for it. Judging by the sheer number of wi-fi routers here I'd say my neighbors would be, too. I think the problems are primarily economic and topographical.
  Here, cable is my only option. I'm not only "tucked in a corner" as far as the telcos are concerned but the wires take the long way to get here. DSL isn't a viable option - can do maybe 768k. Cable here gets me 32/5 (promised - speedtest.net shows me ~33/6) for about $80 on top of television, though.
  I'm all for the bandwidth caps, especially on cable. I'd rather not be cut off, throttled, or what have you. I just want what I want when I want it and I want to pay for it.
3. Re:My Internet Sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah the silicon valley golden age might run into issues down the line due to that. To compare: I have, included in my rent, 14/14 Mbps. If I want 100/100, that'll be $20/month.
  This, in a nowhere special normal Swedish town.
4. Re:My Internet Sucks by drinkypoo · 2012-07-02 05:17 · Score: 1
  
  Well, I *do* live in the middle of nowhere and I *can't* get 5Mbps without paying Ma Bell to run fiber to my house. The most anyone will sell me is 2Mbps over a wireless link. No DSL, no cable, though both are available within a mile of my house or less. It would be cheaper to move, not that I'm doing that.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
5. Re:My Internet Sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  So you're telling me you guys have hot babes AND fast internet? This sounds like a nerd's wet dream paradise :D
6. Re:My Internet Sucks by NeutronCowboy · 2012-07-02 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt you're in the Bay Area. If anything, it's more the local monopolies (ATT and Comcast, sometimes without even competition from each other) who are able to extract astronomical prices without having to upgrade their infrastructure. But everyone else is either clamoring for Fiber, or for uncapped data pipes. That said, another problem could also be that for commercial use, the Bay Area is probably one of the best networked areas in the world. If you're a big company, you have access to nearly unlimited bandwidth. No need to invest in anything else.
  The biggest hope for the Bay Area are projects like the San Leandro commercial fiber loop: the city puts in the fiber via public conduits, the companies pay for the creation and use, and the entire thing is maintained by... well, that's apparently a big secret, or no one knows to ask that question. Presumably businesses will pay the city to maintain the loop. But outside of projects like these, it's unlikely that the Bay Area is going to see much growth in terms of connectivity. The only ISP that is working on fiber is Sonic.net, and they're still going street by street in Sebastopol, a suburb far to the north.
  
  --
  Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
7. Re:My Internet Sucks by rezalas · 2012-07-02 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  The UK is a horrible example to use as a measurement of how long it takes for an area to change from 2Mbps to 100Mbps. The parts of the UK that have shifted are relatively dense and have a high HPM (homes per mile) to warrant the massive spending required to get equipment capable of supporting this kind of change. The physical topology of the UK when compared to other areas is miniscule (USA? India? China? Australia?) and relatively trivial. On the other hand, in the USA there are not only higher upgrade costs, but incentives to NOT upgrade (i.e. local monopolies for every city) since there is little or no competition for internet. Sure, AT&T 'competes' with cable and satellite, but you don't see cable companies overbuilding eachother (and you won't thanks to franchise contracts and gentlemen's agreements) to get your money. No, your options are normally between one of two evils and the pricing is usually about the same (especially since many small-medium size MSOs actually lease their connections from AT&T to save money).
  Bandwidth won't be shooting up over night, or even in the next decade for most people. The price will double long before the bandwidth does.
8. Re:My Internet Sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 12:49 · Score: 0
  
  The UK is a horrible example to use as a measurement of how long it takes for an area to change from 2Mbps to 100Mbps. The parts of the UK that have shifted are relatively dense and have a high HPM (homes per mile) to warrant the massive spending required to get equipment capable of supporting this kind of change.
  Bullshit. We've got it here in East Yorkshire. The population of the entire county is about 300,000 people and its larger than the size of London. My own town has it and we have a population of just 11,000. A nearby village 2 miles away has it and their population is under 3,000.
Re:could also mean Sony made another bonehead play by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 04:48 · Score: 2, Funny

Don't worry, Sony will make the situation way better! First, Sony will make the library exclusively Sony games! You too can now play such gems as "The Punisher: No Mercy" and "Trash Panic"!

But it gets better! By making it exclusively on the Playstation 3, Sony will be able to allow the console to download the game locally, and play it there!

Now, some critics may ask, "How is this different from the game store that was there". This is a valid question! You see, now it has "Cloud" in the name!
what this represents by phantomfive · 2012-07-02 04:50 · Score: 1, Interesting

What the deal represents is acceptance from a major console platform holder that gaming is fast approaching its own Netflix or iPod moment
I think what this represents is that Sony is being run by old execs who don't understand gaming, and aren't finding people who do.

If they want to improve their viability in the gaming world, they should put their money into creating new interesting, great games; they should not be acquiring a new experimental platform whose major achievement is that it's buzzword compliant.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Do gaming companies want to disappear in history? by LocalH · 2012-07-02 04:52 · Score: 2

It sure seems like it with the incessant push to take physical, tangible games out of people's hands and replace them with ephemeral bits that are either downloaded (through a gate that others control, and thus revokable) or streamed (where you never see the actual game code at all, and thus once again revokable). When there aren't physical games for people to own and resell onto others, then one day future generations will see video games like current ones do the majority of the DuMont network's TV programming - not at all, as it won't exist in any form.

--
FC Closer
"top-end UK internet connections" by Quakeulf · 2012-07-02 04:54 · Score: 1

I live in London but I would still get faster speeds by IP over Avian Carriers (USB drives now take several hundred gigs), and the latency is pretty identical to my average online experience.
1. Re:"top-end UK internet connections" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:03 · Score: 0
  
  Find a lower contention carrier. e.g. Utility Warehouse (reselling TalkTalk) have better contention ratios on domestic DSL than BT (for instance) offers on business DSL.
  I made the mistake of taking Sky DSL for a year, and their contention sucks so badly my iPhone can outperform my "24Mb" DSL, even when it's in "little circle" mode (I believe that's GPRS).
Re:Do gaming companies want to disappear in histor by cheekyjohnson · 2012-07-02 04:56 · Score: 1

Begging companies to let you play games while never actually owning anything yourself is the future!

--
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Re:could also mean Sony made another bonehead play by PRMan · 2012-07-02 05:02 · Score: 2

"Sony...death throes..."
Please God, let it be so.

--
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
will needs lots of data cernters all over the plac by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:07 · Score: 0

will needs lots of data centers all over the place to get good lag times and even then it can still cable VOD down sides like maxing out the slots in your area.
Re:could also mean Sony made another bonehead play by Moheeheeko · 2012-07-02 05:07 · Score: 2

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/05/sony-forecasts-a-31b-loss-for-fiscal-2011-due-to-quake-psn-failure/
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/10/business/la-fi-ct-sony-earns-20120510
Over the past 2 years, Sony is $10 BILLION in the hole, and with the bad decisions they constantly make, I wont be suprised if they are gone in a few years.
More true to what cloud gaming should do ... by killdashnine · 2012-07-02 05:16 · Score: 2

Cloud Gaming should be used for demos and such to get people interested ... the upside there is that we don't have to download Gigabytes just to discover a game sucks. Should Sony stick with this kind of model rather than force us to go completely cloud-based, then it'll be a good thing. While many gamers may be tempted to "sell out" to the concept of cloud gaming that OnLive and others are pushing because of the convenience, you should go play Diablo 3 for a while and have that lovely experience of servers being down. Watching things like this weekends Netflix outage does not at all bode well for Cloud Gaming.
I hear distant circus music... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:17 · Score: 0

...it's another Sony story!
How does cloud gaming benefit consumers? by Adrian+Lopez · 2012-07-02 05:27 · Score: 1

Given the widespread adoption of 3D computing hardware at home, how does it benefit consumers to take all that power and move it onto the cloud? It seems like such a waste of bandwidth, not to mention an unnecessary concentration of computing power onto a few cloud-gaming sites.

--
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
1. Re:How does cloud gaming benefit consumers? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 06:12 · Score: 0
  
  "Sony" and "benefiting the consumer" do not belong in the same sentence.
Re:multiscreen gaming: another approach by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 05:38 · Score: 0

Ah, only on Slashdot does someone post a link to a closely related article which interviews the who's who of game designers about the future of multiscreen gaming, and get modded down to -1, while spammers remain at 0 or 1.
Who uses these services? by thetoadwarrior · 2012-07-02 05:40 · Score: 2

I hear tons of talk about Onlive and Gaikai from investor and analyst types but who is actually playing on these systems because I've never heard anyone actually say they use these systems.
1. Re:Who uses these services? by Iceykitsune · 2012-07-02 06:03 · Score: 2
  
  I use OnLive, And it works pretty well, even for fps games like borderlands (even over WiFi).
  
  --
  GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
2. Re:Who uses these services? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 12:05 · Score: 0
  
  Borderlands doesn't require very accurate or fast aim, hence it's a best case for streaming services, unlike a lot of other fps games.
3. Re:Who uses these services? by Iceykitsune · 2012-07-02 23:21 · Score: 1
  
  unreal tournament seems to work just fine.
  
  --
  GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
Re:Do gaming companies want to disappear in histor by LocalH · 2012-07-02 05:48 · Score: 1

That means bupkus, because one day they will no longer be around and history will be all that's left. I'm not talking in 10 or 20 years, I'm talking in 50 to 100.

--
FC Closer
Re:Do gaming companies want to disappear in histor by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 06:54 · Score: 0

I don't speak for gaming companies, but as for myself....
I'd rather have $1000 now then be remembered 30 years in the future. I suspect that attitude is motivating game companies as well.
Re:could also mean Sony made another bonehead play by gman003 · 2012-07-02 06:57 · Score: 1

Over the past 2 years, Sony is $10 BILLION in the hole, and with the bad decisions they constantly make, I wont be suprised if they are gone in a few years.
And there will be much rejoicing.
If only one PS3 game supports kb+m by tepples · 2012-07-02 07:04 · Score: 1

Only Unreal Tournament 3 supports actually playing a game with them.
"Only" was my point. The PS2 and all current consoles have USB ports, but very few console games actually support a keyboard and mouse as an optional PC-style control method. PS3 has one game I know of that supports them, or possibly a handful that I can't think of (because I'm not a PS3 owner). Microsoft's TRC is even stricter: it specifies that keyboards shall be used only for entering text, and there's no driver for a mouse at all. (The one exception in this case is Final Fantasy XI, and that's possibly because text entry is so common that the game can rely on it for character control as well.) So how would the majority of PC games get ported to Gaikai?
sony rootkit by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 07:05 · Score: 0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit
never forget, never forgive
Re:Do gaming companies want to disappear in histor by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 07:16 · Score: 0

Games won't disappear as long as their is demand. Gate-keeping doesn't decrease demand, it just raises the price. If people aren't willing to pay that price, maybe they'll spend more on Magic the Gathering cards or "physical, tangible" media. Or maybe they'll be satisfied with a television subscription like experience.
No one knows what's next by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 07:30 · Score: 1

And that's the answer to why Sony just shelled out for Gaiki even when they're hemorrhaging money. They don't know what's going to happen to gaming as an industry, or where all that money's going to go. By hedging their bets their obviously hoping it's going to go somewhere they are currently at, so they'll easily be able to step up efforts in that area.
This is happening all over the industry, CEO's have gotten into something of an indirect shouting match about their own "visions" of the future of gaming. Crytek want's to ALL free to play. Take Two and the new CEO of THQ seem to think big budget titles are still going to be the big money machines. Some used to be spooked as hell by "social", until of course Zynga's stock collapsed.
The point is there's a big sense that something big could collapse in the next year or three, and no one wants to be part of that collapse.
Buying it to kill it? by goodmanj · 2012-07-02 07:56 · Score: 2

Could this be one of those "buy out a threatening technology and bury it" maneuvers? I don't know how Gaikai and friends pay for the rights to the games they offer, but I strongly suspect they're giving Sony and other rightsholders a lot less money than Sony would make selling the actual games to consumers. Gaikai's business model is a lot like the old video rental stores, and Sony and friends spent two decades trying to destroy those.
1. Re:Buying it to kill it? by DigiShaman · 2012-07-02 12:05 · Score: 1
  
  So Sony buys this to kill something that also benefits the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo, and Apple (assuming next gen AppleTV plays iOS games). Sorry, but I don't buy that argument. All it does it hurt Sony with a load of debt. Of course, I could be wrong. Who am I to say.
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
Another useless /. story about the cloud by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-06 19:53 · Score: 0

Ten enterprise cloud services were disabled during the writing of this article.