Gaikai ready to stream full games within months
Gaikai--the cloud-based gaming platform that has focused on providing gamers with high quality demos--is set to offer users full games within months, according to company co-founder David Perry.
Since launch, the cloud-based gaming service Gaikai has focused on providing gamers with high quality demos of PC titles, showing users what the technology is capable of. According to Gaikai co-founder David Perry, the company has plans to offer gamers with full titles, within months.
Priority one is launching the platform on Facebook--a deal the company revealed last week. Once Facebook is ready, Gaikai will be injected within three months. "About 90 days from that," Perry said in a recent interview. "I'm not aware of any technical hurdles we have that would stop it."
Gaikai currently allows users to play supported game demos within a browser on its official site.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Perry noted there are substantial differences between Gaikai and cloud-based competitor OnLive. "They have to modify the game, they have to get the source code to the game. Gaikai doesn't require modification of the game."
Using The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings as an example, Perry outlined how both Gaikai and OnLive were given the game at the same time and while Gaikai currently has a demo of the game available, OnLive's version has not launched.
"We went live with Witcher 2 immediately and now four or five months later they still don't have that live, and that's because they have to touch the code. The whole structure of Gaikai is about not touching the code," he said.
Gaikai's next steps are to bring the service to other social networks, like YouTube, and even retailers like Best Buy. "If you give me your game today I can put your game in front of more than 100 million people, easily. Quite honestly if we put you on the homepage of YouTube right now on it's own, you're already hitting that number," Perry claimed.
With Gaikai's technology reaching such an expansive network of users, the company becomes an attractive possibility for a company looking to expand its cloud-gaming portfolio. Perry says that console manufacturers need to take the technology seriously.
"You do not want to be the console that can't do this," he said. "I would play a lot more games if I fired up my Xbox, clicked on a game and it started playing straight away. I don't want to take your console from your cold dead hands, that's not the case at all. You're going to continue to play the way you play, but just imagine that you could have an opinion on all games because you've been able to try all of them. Each evening, flick through four or five games that just came out."
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replyXav de Matos posted a new article, Gaikai ready to stream full games within months.
Gaikai--the cloud-based gaming platform that has focused on providing gamers with high quality demos--is set to offer users full games within months, according to company co-founder David Perry.-
I like the technology but on principle I will not support a service like this. This can be the end all, be all to obtrusive DRM if this is ever becomes the new norm to PC gaming. Offline play would be entirely removed as well as the modding scene.
With Internet service plans with bandwidth caps a current reality, you would be in effect paying to play your already paid for games. A service like OnLive has already a history with partnering with ISPs. I can definitely see these services partnering to conspire against the consumers. To top it off, your game's performance is entirely at the mercy of the root service. If anyone can recall early Xbox Live service days where high traffic would drastically hamper net connectivity regardless of what game or what server you connect to.
As a consumer, I can't see equitable benefits for this service over traditional local storage. Your gaming experience is at the mercy of too many external variables and unknowns and robs the user of too much control over their products. I can definitely see publishers considering this delivery method in the future so I won't start supporting this now or ever.-
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You don't own your car when you rent. Even then, your rental car's performance is not hampered by the fact that it's being rented. There is no danger of the auto industry being solely rental.
The topic of piracy will always be a stigma associated with PC gaming. Removing distribution of the data is definitely a strong way to end PC piracy once and for all. Good for publishers but totally dicks over consumers in a major way.
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Have you ever not had the hundreds of dollars required to build a new computer?
Have you ever bought a new game that wouldn't run quite right on your hardware and spent days tweaking it to get it to run?
Have you ever dealt with some of the last couple decade's crazy DRM mechanisms that didn't work properly with certain hardware?
Services like this are making PC gaming more accessible to people who don't have the time, energy, knowledge, or money to deal with the pitfalls of PC gaming. Sure, there are potential downsides, but I think if a service like this really took off and gained lots of support and became somewhat mainstream, PC gaming would move into the realm of "it just works" along with consoles, and the increased exposure (and presumably financial support) our favorite PC titles would receive would be worth it.
Besides, publishers supporting something like this doesn't mean they would suddenly drop the option for traditional local storage. Digital distribution and physical media are both still alive and kicking. This would, at best, be an additional option.-
If this was the standard method of distribution for PC games, this will be THE BATSHIT CRAZIEST form of obtrusive DRM. While I agree the tech has lots of neat ideas that make PC gaming easier, I simply don't agree that the pros outweigh the very awful cons.
I am totally for this co-existing with traditional distributions of PC games. However let's understand one thing. Publishers hate piracy and the removal of data distribution is a very effective way to end PC piracy. You can't tell me that publishers do not see this being a very enticing future of DRM. I simply do not want this service to be anywhere near to be preferable. -
There's been a lot of talk of cloud based software. Microsoft already had plans for a future version of Windows that's entirely Internet based. This has been in talks for nearly a decade. Adobe also shows signs of this with rental accounts of their Creative Suite and online versions (albeit weaker versions) of their software. It's only a matter of time the two converge. Needless to say, I am not a fan.
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The problem is. This isn't PC gaming at all. PC Gaming is completely dead under this model because you aren't actually using the PC to play the games. You could play them on your phone, tablet, TV, console. Maybe that isn't a bad thing having that portability, but what you lose is the ability to do any sort of tweaking/modding/customization. It will be one vanilla flavor for all. And forget any sort of fast action games because unless you have a stellar connection, you will see considerably lag.
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