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Gaikai closed beta to launch in Europe "later this month"

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Dave Perry's Cloud-based Gaikai system is to get a closed beta in Europe this month.

"Over 30,000 people have already signed up to help test and many came from Europe, they were really bummed that they would be left out of our launch plans," said Perry, speaking in a statement you can find after the break.

"Gaikai is all about reaching a massive audience, so we are embracing Europe right away."

Europe first, America next.

"After we choose the hardware configuration in Europe, our next phase will be our USA Nationwide Network Test, that will be using 8 Tier-1 Data Centers, getting hammered by Closed Beta testers," Perry added.

"During that process, will be identifying the other data centers we need to include to blanket the USA in a low latency array. Phase 2 of that is Europe, in exactly the same test."

Gaikai is a service product that allows clients to let users play or test games remotely. The concept's similar to OnLive, but it's not a subs-based thing. Publishers will hire Gaikai to let you play a demo without installing it, for example.

Want to try it? Sign up.

Gaikai Beta to begin in Europe

We've had an amazing response to the recent blog post. If you missed the video, it's here: http://www.dperry.com/archives/news/dp_blog/gaikai_-_video/

I just want everyone to know that our team (including the contractors) have been working extremely hard to bring the service to market in the next few months. Progress has been incredible and I want to thank the major corporations that have circled around us and offered their support.

We have all kinds of surprises in the pipe and look forward to sharing them.

The first one is that we've decided that as all three founders are European, we would start our closed beta in Europe later this month!

(Over 30,000 people have already signed up to help test and many came from Europe, they were really bummed that they would be left out of our launch plans. Gaikai is all about reaching a massive audience, so we are embracing Europe right away.)

Our closed beta has two goals. #1 is to bring our servers to their knees so we can choose the final configuration before we start ordering large quantities of them. (We think we have it worked out, but you can be certain our staff will be swapping cards and testing different processors as each day goes by.)

Goal #2 is to test older computers. We've had lots of emails from people describing their computers and 99% of them have ample performance. Remember you don't even need a 3D card to see a 3D game run on our service. I know this is strangely counter to what people expect, but we actually want to get plenty of basic office-grade XP machines testing so we can make sure we can reach the widest audience possible.

Just in case you're looking for your next career move, we're hiring networking experts, publisher liaison (technical producers), network administrators, business development, social virality programmers, SDK programmers etc. jobs@gaikai.com is the easy way to reach us. We also want senior marketing & sales executives at the major publishers to reach out to us, to discuss our unique business model.

After we choose the hardware configuration in Europe, our next phase will be our USA Nationwide Network Test, that will be using 8 Tier-1 Data Centers, getting hammered by Closed Beta testers. During that process, will be identifying the other data centers we need to include to blanket the USA in a low latency array. Phase 2 of that is Europe, in exactly the same test.

As we have no drivers, no hardware, no install, the testers will be able to click and start playing the game they are assigned, the moment they get our email.

So how can you help? Just sign up, and we will ping you when it's your turn! - http://www.gaikai.com/beta/

We will be contacting people one at a time, based on their location and hardware spec. At certain times of the day, we will be inviting people in streams (every few seconds), to challenge the servers. Don't worry it's all normal, and you will get some quality time to play!

Anyway, we really appreciate the help, these next few months are going to be very exciting for our company.

David Perry - Co-Founder, Gaikai.com

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Patrick Garratt avatar

Patrick Garratt

Founder & Publisher (Former)

Patrick Garratt is a games media legend - and not just by reputation. He was named as such in the UK's 'Games Media Awards', the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. After garnering experience on countless gaming magazines, he joined Eurogamer and later split from that brand to create VG247, putting the site on the map with fast, 24-hour a day coverage, and assembling the site's earliest editorial teams. He retired from VG247, and the games industry, in 2017.

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