It has been almost a full year since Sony acquired game streaming gurus Gaikai, and they’ve had almost nothing to show of this pricey acquisition. That is, until now. The announcement of the PS4 saw Sony hinting at the way Gaikai’s streaming services will be integrated into the new PlayStation gaming experience. We’ve been given minor glimpses of how Gaikai will be used already but, with such a unique asset tied to their next gen offering, I’m sure there are plenty of creative new ways that Sony will be using game streaming tech. We’ll be discussing them below in an eclectic mix of rumour and total pipe-dreams.
Backwards Compatibility
Sony already announced this was a-go with PS3 games streaming on the PS4. We’ll also apparently be treated to further backwards compatibility via streaming to Vita. Awesome. We’re hoping this will be extended to cover download free PS1, 2 and PSP gaming as well. That way we’ll be living the backwards compatible dream, but only if the price is right.
Download-Free Demos
There was a lot of talk at the PS4 announcement about downloads occurring in the background. A lot of focus was placed on how the console will be able to tell what you want based on previous purchases and download the content in the background accordingly; even when the console isn’t active, apparently. Forget downloads though, as we can stream it now. I doubt full PS4 games will be streamable, but it would be awesome if you could get instant access to demos, to cut out the waiting time of the download.
Smart Phone/Tablet Integration
Sony have said they want to integrate smart phones and tablets into their PS4 experience and, whilst this has been shown primarily in terms of social and marketplace access options, there’s no reason why game streaming wouldn’t be possible. I’m sure Gaikai can come up with some solution, even if we only get streaming of previous generation PlayStation titles.
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