It’s just a matter of strengthening infrastructure so that it’s ”robust enough and fast enough” to handle consumer demand. It could become just like YouTube with ”instantaneous access” to content.
The Gaikai future certainly seems bright over at Sony which is in stark contrast to the near collapse of US rival OnLive which has been acquired by a new owner.
”Cloud gaming is not future technology. It’s current,” said Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida. ”It’s already in service. It’s just a matter of getting the internet infrastructure that’s robust enough and fast enough for a greater amount of people. It’s still limited in terms of what’s required to be able to play games through the internet.”
PlayStation 3 and Vita are perfect for adapting to Cloud gaming, argues Sony, as integration of the technology wouldn’t cause much of a headache for engineers. Sony is yet to formally outline how they will use Gaikai.
”Games become something in the future, like when you watch YouTube. That’s an amazing service. You have instantaneous access to an almost infinite amount of content,” continued Yoshida-san.
”Compared to the current experience - you have to download gigabytes of data, you have to wait 20 minutes, 30 minutes or a couple of hours, and you have to go through the installations and patching. That can potentially be removed.”
Latency - or lag - is chiefly the number one issue raised by users of Cloud platforms and that is typically caused by bandwidth restrictions as many in the world are still without high speed Internet access.
”Of course there are limitations,” he admitted, ”in terms of responsiveness, latency and required bandwidth. But I’m very excited we’re able to work with the best talent in the industry who are trying to solve the issues that’s inherent in cloud gaming.” Some circles bemoaned YouTube as a harbinger of collapsing the Internet because of the sheer weight of demand from users, but our global network has proved far more resilient.
”In the future we are sure cloud gaming as a service will offer some additional great experiences to millions of people.”
Cloud gaming is said to be a focus for the next generation of home consoles and Smart TVs.
