Sony's Acquisition of Gaikai for $380 Million Could Reinvent Gaming Forever

 

Microsoft’s and Sony’s new console will be revealed in 2013, but what has many gamers and gaming writers anxious and worried is whether the new consoles will incorporate cloud gaming. With the news of Sony’s $380 million acquisition of GaiKai, which offers cloud-based service for accessing video games online with no need of any additional hardware, many are wondering if this is Sony’s next step for its upcoming console. What it could mean is stream games straight to a console with no updates, downloads, porting, or extra hardware for old games to work. A library of all games for the PlayStation could simply be made available online for any gamer to play to their hearts content. Games could be able play conveniently and easily through the service that would be offered through paying for access with no download. This could open new opportunities for more potential gamers to play games they couldn’t before as the prices for consoles would significantly drop due to the likelihood of less hardware needed.


The downside to this “too good to not be sci-fi” experience is the amount of bandwidth that is evolved. We’re talking about Xbox live on an even more massive scale. This type of magnitude of gaming has yet to have an infrastructure to support it since there has yet to be any game that has proven it possible. Full 70+ hour games via an internet connection could not only massively raise the cable bill but could prove to be difficult for those without the needed internet quality in order to play. Nevertheless, Sony’s business move was a smart one as for making GaiKai an ally, now would rid the chance of it being a threat. Sony’s competition, however, will be also looking into cloud gaming as an addition to their new consoles. GaiKai’s competitor, OnLive, also offers their own service for playing cloud-based games on PC, mobile devices, and a streaming box. The investment in cloud gaming is a just and right one for Sony ,however, given the disadvantage of jumping completely into cloud gaming could hurt the company more than they bargained for. If Sony could manage to create a hybrid of both cloud and hardware, it could lessen the need of additional hardware and ease gamers from completely relying on cloud services to play.


A hybrid of both cloud and hardware for the next gen could also prove to be beneficial as more markets could afford a next gen console that would require less hardware and thus be less expensive.  It would also be beneficial if the next gen did offer backwards compatible access to games via the cloud services by using the same partial system storage as the PS3.


GaiKai acquisition is a great investment for Sony’s future that could make it a worthy adversary. 

Narz is long standing Sega Fan, gaming equality advocate, founder of Girl Gamer Vogue, and writer for Gametyrant.

SOCOM - The Game that Transformed Into a Movement

   It’s been a while since I played SOCOM but I recently found my game manual that brought back memories of the time I was such a devoted gamer. So dedicated in fact that we created our own blog where we kept track of our scores and levels of a game that embodied what we felt a game should be. This was where the revolution of gaming began and in it a camaraderie between headsets and remote controls; soldiers in our own right to shoot for that satisfaction to complete missions and get on with our next tactics, and that was the beauty of it. What most of us felt was worth putting our time in because it was never a waste of time, especially after our blog got so many hits our server went down while all the hype for this game in particular continued to sky-rocket to an altitude none of us were prepared for. SOCOM fever spread through adolescents at a rate that consumed as well as generated an energy so powerful it was addicting and thus coined SoCrack.com

               This blog was set to generate and inform other SOCOM fans of current and upcoming models of our beloved game. Granted, perhaps we took it too far with our love for this game but it has been proven that no other game has held up to the standards to what SOCOM offered us in its prime. SoCrack was a way for gamers to express their winnings, losings and learn other forms to play and perfect their craft as the third-person tactical shooter. Many came through with stories relating to their experience and ideas on how this game can be even better. This was the vortex that led us to dive deeper and in an effort to keep up we continuously produced more and more SOCOM players and fans. But after SOCOM 1 and 2, we realized Sony could not top what this introduced to many gamers who felt games were too easy and predictable after playing for so long and being one of them, SOCOM was the first to actually hold my interest for as long as it did.

               Eventually, after the server for SoCrack crashed and the peak of SOCOM began to dwindle, so did our enthusiasm and I sobered up as well, giving in my title as co-founder of the site. However, just the other day I found that SoCrack is now managed by other SOCOM fans who are encouraging the remake to SOCOM 1 and 2 stating our original mission where “we are going to be that ‘unified voice’ that get's Sony's attention and shows them that we, the community, want the PS2 SOCOM experience back.” That experience that brings me back to my gamer side, where I am not just another teenager playing the latest Sony game installment, but G-Scope, a man with an army of brothers ready to shoot and destroy enemies and lead us to victory. If Sony delivers another game with this experience enough to engage a new generation of gamers, I would not think twice to hunt for my PS2 and relapse into the socrack virtual shooting phenomenon.

Check it out for yourself at SoCrack.com

G-Scope is a freelance video game writer and founder of SoCrack.com.