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

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.