Sony Computer Entertainment buys Gaikai

You may or may not be familiar with Gaikai - the cloud based gaming service. Like OnLive, Gaikai allows you to play games over the internet - data is streamed and downloads aren't required. It allows you to play high quality games regardless of your hardware - you are viewing and interacting with video of the game running on Gaikai's servers, so the platform is not particularly important. What is important however, is your bandwidth - naturally, streaming video games without the game being unbearable requires a significant data connection - which is why it isn't yet available in Australia.

That may be set to change in the future however, as Sony Computer Entertainment today announced that it has purchased Gaikai for the princely sum of $380 million dollars. What SCE plan on doing with the streaming technology is as yet unknown, although rumours suggest porting their previous games to a variety of devices. As picked up by Andrew House - CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment - said of the purchase:

"SCE will deliver a world-class cloud-streaming service that allows users to instantly enjoy a broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of internet-connected devices."

Of course, Australian use of Gaikai technology is not only impeded by our lack of direct access to the cloud based service - there are relatively few people who would have the internet capabilities to utilise such a service in Australia in the first place. While that number will no doubt increase as time passes, it will be interesting to see how Sony handle the implementation of a service with such a limited user-base. What do you think of cloud-gaming? Would you be on board if it were available, or would you prefer something more tangible over the opportunity to play games across a variety of devices? Let us know in the comments below.