3 ms·

Sony to buy cloud-gaming firm Gaikai for $380 million

19 points by chewymouse 14y ago

molmalo 14y ago
How long until Microsoft buys onLive then?
- mariusmg 14y ago
  For what ?! Sony seems to trying to use Gaikai as some sort as backward compatibility magic solution. MS doesn't needs that.
  - simba-hiiipower 14y ago
    According to a recently leaked 'Xbox 720' deck (dated August 2010) they cited cloud-based gaming and media streaming as being a key feature they'd integrate into their next console by 2015 [1]. OnLive is discussed as both a potential competitor and a way to help facilitate that (as an acquisition) in this regard. The original file has been taken down and I can't seem to find it [anyone?] but I also remember they made some comment to the effect that this upcoming console generation would likely be the last (as we traditionally know it) and more robust future OnLive-like services would take over beyond that. Given that, I think an OnLive acquisition makes sense on their part and will probably happen at some point. [1] http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/more-xbox-leaks-microsoft-once-considered-an-onlive-acquisition/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/more-xbox-leaks-micros...
  - teamonkey 14y ago
    The point of Gaikai and OnLive is to be able to play high-end games on cheap consumer hardware. As an example, Sony's most recent Google TV STB can play games using OnLive (yes, it appears that Sony is still internally confused). Gaikai runs in a web browser, OnLive has Android and iPad clients, etc. Sony already do a bit of this by allowing game video to be streamed from your PS3 to your PSP or Vita. Microsoft also announced something similar at E3 this year. But more than that, Gaikai will allow players to buy top-end games which can be played on any PC or tablet without needing special hardware.
confluence 14y ago
> The deal comes only a matter of weeks after the E3 expo, at which Gaikai's chief executive David Perry flat out denied there was any deal between the two companies. Never ever believe anything that comes out of a person's mouth. This especially includes start-up founders and even yours truly (me). Everything is for sale. But in this case, I actually have no idea what Sony is actually buying? Could someone enlighten me as to why this is worth $380 million? It appears to be a super low latency video streamer/pusher with backend rendering and licensing agreements with various game publishers. > Fortune reported that the cloud-based game streaming company hired bankers to help it find a buyer and expected a deal "well in excess" of $500 million. Never ever believe anything written by Forbes or any other business publication (or any publication - period). If governments are bought and paid for (I kid), what does that make a business magazine? Old, jaded, sarcastic and cynical is what I am. World - what have you done to me!
- teamonkey 14y ago
  > But in this case, I actually have no idea what Sony is actually buying? Could someone enlighten me as to why this is worth $380 million? It appears to be a super low latency video streamer/pusher with backend rendering and licensing agreements with various game publishers. You play games over Gaikai. Controller input and video decoding at the client end, top-end gaming hardware and video compression at the server end. The point is that people can play top-end games on a very low-spec PC (or STB) instead of a $900+ PC because the rendering is done off-site. There's lag, sure, but it's not as big a deal as you'd expect. The PCs at their end are virtualized, of course and not all games require the same resources at all times. As far as I know Gaikai's business model was based around publishers paying them to provide free demos of games for maximum exposure (I could be wrong). In contrast their competitors OnLive have a monthly subscription service of full games similar to Netflix.
CodeCube 14y ago
This is great news for these guys! They've been working on the tech for years and I'm glad to see a good exit for them. For those of you who don't know, David Perry is the guy who brought us Earthworm Jim :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Perry_%28game_developer%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Perry_%28game_developer%2...
ippisl 14y ago
Owning a strong gaming platform seems like a good way to get a lot of cheap/free GPU cycles[1].In light of the recent google "cat" computer vision experiment, that showed us that the road to a big leap in AI might just need a lot of hardware, that's a good position to be in. [1]Since latency is important, cloud gaming platforms serve population who live in similar time zones and users don't usually play while at work, making the platform relatively unused in working hours.

19 points by chewymouse 14y ago

molmalo 14y ago

How long until Microsoft buys onLive then?

mariusmg 14y ago
For what ?! Sony seems to trying to use Gaikai as some sort as backward compatibility magic solution. MS doesn't needs that.
- simba-hiiipower 14y ago
  According to a recently leaked 'Xbox 720' deck (dated August 2010) they cited cloud-based gaming and media streaming as being a key feature they'd integrate into their next console by 2015 [1]. OnLive is discussed as both a potential competitor and a way to help facilitate that (as an acquisition) in this regard. The original file has been taken down and I can't seem to find it [anyone?] but I also remember they made some comment to the effect that this upcoming console generation would likely be the last (as we traditionally know it) and more robust future OnLive-like services would take over beyond that. Given that, I think an OnLive acquisition makes sense on their part and will probably happen at some point. [1] http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/more-xbox-leaks-microsoft-once-considered-an-onlive-acquisition/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/more-xbox-leaks-micros...
- teamonkey 14y ago
  The point of Gaikai and OnLive is to be able to play high-end games on cheap consumer hardware. As an example, Sony's most recent Google TV STB can play games using OnLive (yes, it appears that Sony is still internally confused). Gaikai runs in a web browser, OnLive has Android and iPad clients, etc. Sony already do a bit of this by allowing game video to be streamed from your PS3 to your PSP or Vita. Microsoft also announced something similar at E3 this year. But more than that, Gaikai will allow players to buy top-end games which can be played on any PC or tablet without needing special hardware.

confluence 14y ago

> The deal comes only a matter of weeks after the E3 expo, at which Gaikai's chief executive David Perry flat out denied there was any deal between the two companies. Never ever believe anything that comes out of a person's mouth. This especially includes start-up founders and even yours truly (me). Everything is for sale. But in this case, I actually have no idea what Sony is actually buying? Could someone enlighten me as to why this is worth $380 million? It appears to be a super low latency video streamer/pusher with backend rendering and licensing agreements with various game publishers. > Fortune reported that the cloud-based game streaming company hired bankers to help it find a buyer and expected a deal "well in excess" of $500 million. Never ever believe anything written by Forbes or any other business publication (or any publication - period). If governments are bought and paid for (I kid), what does that make a business magazine? Old, jaded, sarcastic and cynical is what I am. World - what have you done to me!

teamonkey 14y ago
> But in this case, I actually have no idea what Sony is actually buying? Could someone enlighten me as to why this is worth $380 million? It appears to be a super low latency video streamer/pusher with backend rendering and licensing agreements with various game publishers. You play games over Gaikai. Controller input and video decoding at the client end, top-end gaming hardware and video compression at the server end. The point is that people can play top-end games on a very low-spec PC (or STB) instead of a $900+ PC because the rendering is done off-site. There's lag, sure, but it's not as big a deal as you'd expect. The PCs at their end are virtualized, of course and not all games require the same resources at all times. As far as I know Gaikai's business model was based around publishers paying them to provide free demos of games for maximum exposure (I could be wrong). In contrast their competitors OnLive have a monthly subscription service of full games similar to Netflix.

CodeCube 14y ago

This is great news for these guys! They've been working on the tech for years and I'm glad to see a good exit for them. For those of you who don't know, David Perry is the guy who brought us Earthworm Jim :D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Perry_%28game_developer%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Perry_%28game_developer%2...

ippisl 14y ago

Owning a strong gaming platform seems like a good way to get a lot of cheap/free GPU cycles[1].In light of the recent google "cat" computer vision experiment, that showed us that the road to a big leap in AI might just need a lot of hardware, that's a good position to be in. [1]Since latency is important, cloud gaming platforms serve population who live in similar time zones and users don't usually play while at work, making the platform relatively unused in working hours.