Sony Purchases Game Streaming Service Gaikai

[IBNobody]

I have no problem with digital distribution. Even if the DRM services go down, games can always be cracked for future use

But that article is hardly a point of support for cloud gaming. Cloud gaming reintroduces the middle man that was cut out with digital distribution.

I was referring to the death of physical distribution and how it can't be relied upon. It's not a good thing when it puts a company under.

But the beauty of cloud gaming is that it coexists well with digital distribution. We're not talking cloud-exclusivity here. Every game that comes out on the cloud will have a computer counterpart you can buy instead. (It's easy to port a PC game to the cloud, because it'll run off a server on the cloud.) Whether or not it will have a console counterpart is another story.

 

[Maxternal]

I know a lot of people have mentioned playing a game that's run server-side and only see it through streaming video (basically how I take it OnLive works). That would be like having them release a PS4 and sell you rights to use it through a proprietary video streaming client (which would be all that's actually in the box when you open it up) and they keep the rest of the console as a server you connect to. Basing on the assumption that few gamers are actually gonna be playing their games 24/7, that way they don't actually have to product a console for each and every customer, just enough

Other than their announcement of providing ps2 games online on the ps3 (and ps1 on the vita) which I would assume would be delivered only by streaming video, I think it would be more feasible for them to just stream the disk contents. That would need far less powerful servers to accomplish. The console is still doing all the work but they could still take advantage of all the streaming technology acquired with the new company.
This way you would be paying for access to a certain game on their server and the console reads it off the server instead of off a disk. If your connection speed is similar to the read speed on the disk drive, you're set.

One way or another, this suites them with the court decision allowing downloadable content to be resold. You can't resell it and have a very difficult time pirating it if you never get a hold of a copy of it in the first place.
With the disk streaming idea, though there would still have to be some mechanism in place to prevent people from downloading the whole disk. I could see someone recording the network traffic as it goes by them on the network but for that reason I'm sure it would be encrypted. They would just have to do a better job protecting their keys than they did with the PS3.

 

[Qtis]

If only they put stuff on sale and that the prices would lower as time passes. Kinda like buying older games: the first PS3 games are easily 10€ eachfrom various online retailers (new!), but still cost double or triple on PSN. Same happens for every platform from PC to 360 to PSN to Nintendo eShop :/

 

[exangel]

If only they put stuff on sale and that the prices would lower as time passes. Kinda like buying older games: the first PS3 games are easily 10€ eachfrom various online retailers (new!), but still cost double or triple on PSN. Same happens for every platform from PC to 360 to PSN to Nintendo eShop :/

I see old-content price drops on Steam that are about halfway between retail price drops and MSRP, so not so much on PC.. niche games on the other hand, such as the SEGA Dreamcast ports, remain at the same price. Games (like Darksiders, before Darksiders II promos started to surface,) which you'd expect to be pretty cheap by now, have not gone down to where they should be at, but they're definitely not as expensive as they were at launch.

 

[LightyKD]

It's a nice option, and I'm glad it's there. For those with a fast enough internet connection, it's a very, very nice service. I have my Xbox 360, PS Vita, and other things all in my room so if my mother wants to play something she'd have to come in ask me where everything is. With the nice OnLive service, I've set her up an account on her tablet. So she plays Lego Batman, and some of those indie games from one of the Indie Bundle. I've given it a shot myself, and I'd give it a thumbs up. However, I agree that it shouldn't take over the gaming community due to people with low end devices that aren't supported, or that don't have a fast enough internet connection to keep up with it but should be there as an option. (I was even tempted to get her to buy the OnLive console.)

Your mom can get a free Micro Console if she pre orders Darksiders 2 ($49.99) not to mention the DLC also comes with it for free.