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Sony Exercising Its Acquisition of GaiKai, Plans To Stream Games To PS4
dmfinn writes "With less than 5 days until the reported PS4 launch event, new details are emerging regarding some of the console's next-gen capabilities. Since last June, Sony has been quietly sitting on its $380 million dollar acquisition of Gaikai, a cloud based gaming company. The Wall Street Journal, among other sources, is now reporting that the PS4 will have GaiKai's cloud-based gaming technology directly integrated, thought it is unclear exactly what types of games will be available for streaming. Back in June, a rumor circulated that Sony was planning to use the technology to support backwards compatibility with PS2 and PS1 games, though no further details have arisen regarding whether or not the new console will be able to play previous generation games. It appears that Sony will most likely be using the service to stream PS3 and indie games to the console, as the current technology only supports 720p, not high enough quality for blockbuster games. Constantly streaming interactive graphics, even if only at 720p, will still require a fast internet connection. Services like OnLive have struggled in the past due to the large amount of bandwidth they require, and many consumers complained of laggy connections and horrendous graphics. There is no word yet regarding the features of the games being streamed, including whether or not they will support online or local multiplayer."
Maybe console gamers want hardware that is not several years behind current PC quality?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
So basically console gamers are in a e-penis contest with pc gamers.
Who said that? You know very well that it's simply fun to have a new machine with better game graphics.
Ironic considering that if you stream games all that superior e-penis power goes to waste.
Nobody said PS4 would be stream-only, as far as I can tell.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
None of those old single player games were designed for lag and the vast majority of people just don't have the net connection for it. There's a reason online streaming of games went no where, it sucks.
None of those old single player games were designed for lag
Games with a slower pace, such as anything that's not a bunny-hopping FPS or clickfest RTS, could probably be adapted to 100 ms control lag. In fact, rhythm games have had explicit lag settings in one form or another since Dance Dance Revolution Konamix on the original PlayStation to account for upscaler lag in the monitor.
You know very well that it's simply fun to have a new machine with better game graphics.
Then why not just buy a PC or put a new video card in your existing PC? A new video card will have HDMI out for your TV.
Serious question, am I the only one that sees the end coming for these big name Consoles? I don't know much about what Nintendo is doing, but Sony and Microsoft seem to be trying to, almost Rape people.
No used games, Massive DRM, Streaming, Lock-ins, Insane prices etc. These types of things are Bad, if they continue adding things that are Consumer unfriendly, I just can't see a future for these Companies.
You got these Mini-Consoles popping up now, almost as if they are the next evolution in Consoles and alternatives for people tired of the Big Boys behavior. You guys can't see all of this happening? It's quite clear to me.
For that there is no need for releasing a PS4, they could use current PS3 hardware
Likewise, for a game like Lumines in 2005, there wasn't much need for releasing it on PSP when it could have been easily done on the existing Game Boy Advance. In fact, three different developers ended up releasing three different fan-made ports: Gleam, Luminesweeper, and Luminate.
There are three reasons to sell a game for a new console rather than the old:
I don't know what you are talking about. The OP had complained about PS4's horsepower, saying that it isn't needed for streaming. I replied that PS4 will not be just for streaming, and that for other games (disk-based) faster hardware is obviously desireable.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Considering Sony's past history of screwing over paying customers with the XCP trojan, the OtherOs removal, and other evils, my guess is the extra horsepower is for DRM, spying, or other consumer-hostile purpose.
With their history, I don't understand why anybody would buy anything from Sony.
Free Martian Whores!
they could use it for streaming the menus of certain games, so an essential part of the game is ran on their servers while the game itself resides on the console.
Right, and the graphics and CPU power available to games will be exactly the same as the PS3. I don't think so. Look, I dislike Sony just as much as you, but one can do that without making ridiculous claims.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Because the amount of cash that one would be willing to pay to rent a server wouldn't be as big as the amount of cash if every player would buy the game's sequel.
Wow... why would one need to rent a server? Doesn't anyone remember the golden age of gaming when online games came with server software pre-installed? For instance, most of the Quake servers were on gamers' machines. Pay for running a server? Maybe I'm just old but that sounds insane to me.
I guess in this age of corporate hypergreed we're not likely to see gamers running their own servers again. They're going to extract every pound of flesh from customers as they can. People just bend over and take it these days. Personally, I miss computer gaming but I just can't stomach today's corporate greed.
Free Martian Whores!
I very much suspect they plan to stream only parts of the game. You'd be missing an integral part (not only data as textures, but computations), which would make a pretty solid copy protection.
I doubt they scream graphics, as you notice the lag. But I very much could assume they stream the AI, background sounds (music), cutscenes or generally execute scrips (quest progression etc) on a server. That is easily queueable and you'd not notice some lag of 100 ms.
The fuckers will carry on doing everything in their power to kill local multiplayer.
How can the big game studios "kill" local multiplayer? They can abandon it in their own titles, but that would just leave the genres associated with local multiplayer to indie developers, and connecting a gaming PC, Steam box, or Ouya console to a TV would become a more attractive option.
Online multiplayer is NOT a superior replacement for local multiplayer. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.
For people who live alone or with a non-gamer and can never find the time to schedule play dates, weaknesses outnumber strengths. Online multiplayer is the only way to play multiplayer with pickup groups of strangers. For genres where each player really needs his own view and pointing device, such as RTS, weaknesses outnumber strengths. And for game types that depend on hiding information from your opponents, such as FPS where both players aren't on the same team, weaknesses outnumber strengths.
I'm sorry, but your comment makes absolutely no sense. Are you saying that console gaming should not be improved? That they shouldn't have more power, better graphics, and more features? What does decoding h264 have to do with how powerful the PS4 is going to be? It's like complaining that my PC is too powerful "just to stream video". Sure, maybe it is just to stream video. But how about everything else I do with it? How about everything else you do with the PS4? You know, like playing non streaming games? (Especially since OnLive and GaiKai have very unsatisfactory experiences due to input/response lag and lower graphic fidelity).
Media companies suckered/forced people into buying music all over again on 8-track to replace their records. Then again, on cassette. Then again on CD. Then again, digitally. Even though all you really owned for those things was a license to listen to the music and nothing else. Everyone was happy to see digital distribution of everything, because now there is finally a format of distribution that won't need to be replaced!. (But you still only own a license to enjoy the content for as long as they want to allow you to).
The truth, I suspect, is that Microsoft and Sony will probably just tell you that you have to buy your content all over again on the new platforms. They might even claim "well, gosh, it requires so much money to make those old XBLA/PSN games work on the new system, so we have to charge you for them again!". Or they might not even make your digital games playable at all on the new systems (because, you know, making 2013 hardware capable of emulating almost decade-old software is . .. I don't know -- impossible or something).