Intel has announced their investment in a Southern California based cloud gaming service known as Gaikai. The aim of Gaikai is to allow gamers to play titles directly through their Web browser. So far it seems that a deal has been struck with EA allowing Gaikai to deliver titles such as The Sims, Mass Effect, and Medal of Honour – some pretty hard hitting IP.
Details on the financials of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Gaikai CEO David Perry did mention that their servers are operating on Intel Six-Core processors. “Intel’s chips allow us to stream more games simultaneously while offering users a premium experience. Having Intel Capital buy into our vision as much as we buy into their processors makes this a great deal for both companies,” said Perry.
Cloud based gaming has been on the theoretical cards for quite a while now, but there have been no implementations of a full service until recently. The first and foremost to mind would be the Onlive service which launched barely a month ago. Onlive offers a number of premium titles, streamed directly to users’ homes via a small console-like device.
Gaikai appears to be targeting the as-of-yet untapped market of PC browser-based cloud gaming, and their technology must be pretty enticing if Intel is willing to invest. There are no details yet on the technicalities of the streaming service, but if we draw assumptions from examples such as Onlive, PC hardware requirements will be minimal, and a broadband connection of at least 5MB/s will be required to adequately stream 720p resolution gaming video and audio.
Whilst this is all very interesting, South African gamers may have to wait until local networks and data tariffs are up to the global standards required before even considering using such a service. Still, Gaikai hasn’t been launched yet, so we can lean on the South African cultural cornerstone of dreaming of a better future – where fibre optic cables sprout from every street corner, and rainbow rivers of bandwidth flow across the land.
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