Tag Archives: cloud gaming

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been chatting again, and you know what that means – speculative Xbox 360 talk.

This time, it has to do with new forms of the console, along with changing price points.

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Cloud gaming service Gaikai is aiming for launch in early 2010 after a closed beta, creator David Perry told VG247 at Develop in Brighton today.

“If it all goes to plan we’re looking at the first quarter of 2010, and there’ll be a closed beta before that,” he said.

“As of last night we have 20,000 people signed up for our closed beta, with not a single dollar spent on marketing.”

Perry added: “I already have enough players for closed beta. What we’re actually going to do is set up the servers in California and we’re going to keep delivering players until we cripple the servers.

“Then we’re going to make some configuration changeswhen we see the data, then we’re going to invite more players.”

When he gets the “final server configuration” he’ll “launch across the US”.

Perry keynoted Develop this morning on the subject of Gaikai, MMOs and Acclaim.

Hit the break for 17 minutes of video of Perry talking solely about Gaikai. For ease, we’ve paraphrased our questions below so you can jump to the bits you fancy.

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Wedbush Morgan said in a report today that “OnLive could change the landscape” of gaming, and that its preview of the service at GDC left onlookers “blown away”.

“It is not clear to us that OnLive will dominate any time soon, but we are confident that this breakthrough technology will ultimately be widely adopted,” said the firm, adding that OnLive’s ultra-low-latency set-up is likely to appeal to those demanding videoconferencing as a sideline.

Verizon or another broadband provider could buy the company for its videoconferencing capability, Wedbush said, and could offer games as an add-on to the videoconferencing service.

“The possibilities are endless, but the technology is quite appealing, and we are confident that OnLive will end up as part of the video game culture some time next decade.”

The service is expected to launch in 2009.

Warren Spector convinced Will Wright at GDC that Cloud gaming’s going have a giant impact on the trade.

The famed developers went toe-to-toe on the issue during the Luminaries Lunch at the Californian show last month.

“For the first time in my life, at least, I actually got Will Wright to admit that I was right about something we were argued about — specifically, the big impact Cloud computing was likely to have on games and game development,” Spector said, writing on his blog.

“I think it’s going to be huge and he, at least at the start of the discussion, didn’t think it would change things at all.”

Wright told VG247 after the Lunch that, “In the future, if people are really browsing these things, it’s a great opportunity.”

There’s a full update on Warren’s first GDC day through the link, there.

Crytek boss Cevat Yerli’s told GI it doesn’t expect Cloud gaming to be viable until at least 2013.

“We had our research in 2005 on this subject but we stopped around 2007 because we had doubts about economics of scale. But that was at a time when bandwidth was more expensive,” he said.

“We saw that by 2013 – 2015 with the development of bandwidths and household connections worldwide that it might become more viable then.”

It’s netcon speeds, not video rendering, that’s letting the side down, Yerli said.

“It doesn’t take a lot to make a video-based renderer, but what you need is the right infrastructure that is beyond the technology we have, it’s more like cable net providers and communication networks.

“They have to provide fast bandwidths and connectivity in order to allow such technology to excel. So as it was dependent on somebody else, we decided to wait,” he added.

More through there.