By Randale Patterson
The cloud has been very popular for storing data for individuals and companies over the past few years. Now, however, the cloud is being utilized for gaming purposes. Sony has just acquired a cloud based gaming streaming service called OnLive. OnLive gives its clients the ability to access and play their games without a console, a disc, or a controller (if they so choose). Customers will be able to stream their gaming straight from the internet.
The cloud has been very popular for storing data for individuals and companies over the past few years. Now, however, the cloud is being utilized for gaming purposes. Sony has just acquired a cloud based gaming streaming service called OnLive. OnLive gives its clients the ability to access and play their games without a console, a disc, or a controller (if they so choose). Customers will be able to stream their gaming straight from the internet.
Game streaming has a few advantages over traditional console gaming. First, games bought via streaming are much cheaper than physical copies of games, allowing customers to have a wider variety of games for the same money. Furthermore, since OnLive (which is now owned by Sony) is based online, users can take their gaming anywhere and play from any device at any time, giving OnLive more portability than any console. Some of the issues include connection and latency problems and the subscription prices, which may be a bit steep for some.
OnLive, in conjunction with another game streaming service that Sony acquired in 2012, Gaikai, will create what will be called PlayStation Now. This will be Sony's game streaming service available on PS4 and Vita. PS Now will give customers the ability to stream PS3 and PS4 games, fixing the PS4's backwards compatibility problem while simultaneously innovating the Playstation and keeping it as modern and up to date as possible.
Game streaming will be the norm by the time the very next generation of consoles is released for sale (probably later this year). Each other console manufacturer will add streaming services to keep up with PS. XBox and Nintendo will create similar services for their customers so that PS can't capture too much market share from this innovation.
Game streaming seems like a much more efficient way to supply gamers with entertainment. Rather than having a customer get up and go to a video game store to buy a physical copy, they can turn their console on and purchase the game from their own system. I have seen this start to take over with my friends who predominately buy games through streaming. My guess is that within the next 5-7 years, physical copies of games will become synonymous with physical copies of DVDs.
ReplyDeleteLike Miles said game streaming seems so much efficient than the traditional gaming experience we know now. I really hope this takes off because if it does you can expect to see this concept spread to other niches in the market.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of video game streaming but I believe this may cause problems. I know back in the day people began to bootleg videogames. They found ways to tap into the systems and get games for cheap with just a computer and a CD. I believe with the advance of this type of technology hackers will find a way to hack the cloud and get games for free. Sony does control the server but there have been multiple times where the server was hacked as a whole. This can truly hurt Microsoft or Song if this does happen in the future.
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