3 ms·

> 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 comp

> 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.

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.