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Samsung Cloud Gaming service powered by Gaikai, plus tablet stuff

P

Pranay

Member
It's a Samsung Smart TV, playing high-end PC games like The Witcher 2 without so much as a set-top box; they're delivered solely over the internet. More importantly, it's an existing TV that's already on sale, with only a firmware update on top. "We don't need special chips or hardware," Perry tells me, adding that the update has been in the works for over six months with engineers flying to and from Korea in the interim. Today, it’s just an experiment laid bare on a table, but next week it becomes real: At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Samsung will formally announce a partnership with Gaikai to introduce a cloud gaming service for its high-end televisions, and roll out a private beta soon afterwards.

That might not immediately sound like a game-changing announcement, but Gaikai executives are over the moon: Samsung is arguably the world's largest tech company — "There isn't a bigger deal to do in cloud gaming," says Perry — and it's not Gaikai's first rodeo. Samsung rival LG already committed to updating every one of its 2012 Cinema 3D television sets to include Gaikai back at CES, and the company believes it's going to be a strong differentiator. Back in Gaikai's spacious glass conference room, Perry has me imagine two TVs on a wall: "The TV on the right plays every video game ever made, the one on the left doesn't. The cost difference is nothing. That's why we think it's going to be compelling."
Quote:
However, to use a favorite expression of Perry's, there's a twist: If you've got a Samsung Smart TV, you won't be playing on Gaikai proper; You'll be playing on Samsung's Cloud Gaming service, powered by Gaikai's network. While Gaikai facilitates the transaction, negotiates rights to particular games, integrates them into the service, builds the UI, and even puts the physical server racks together, it's Samsung that's footing the bill and Samsung that reaps the rewards. Samsung will get a cut of the purchase price, just like a brick and mortar retailer would. The secret, the company tells me, is that each new partner pays for their own set of dedicated servers in Gaikai's cloud, such that every time there's a new company, the whole network expands that much more and thus lowers the latency to end users. Each partner that isn't using their full capacity at a given moment leaves that much additional bandwidth for others to stream their games, and as a result, Gaikai claims its service is now live in 88 countries. In short, while Gaikai is almost definitely competing with OnLive at some level due to the expanded focus, it seems like the company is still true to its roots: it's a business-to-business firm, and thus it's not a centralized Gaikai that's expanding, so much as a slew of prospective grey-label providers using Gaikai's network.
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http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/31/3...tv-david-perry-interview-cloud-gaming-youtube





IMG_5079_large_verge_super_wide.jpeg


IMG_5085.jpg
 
C

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
So is this the big thing that Gaikai was talking about?

Interesting to see where all these Sony rumours lead to after this.
OnLive instead, just a partnership in the same way as this or are they aiming to become the owner of Gaikai even that that means all these little deals with other companies.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
The article linked in the OP is already down, it seems.
 
T

thehillissilent

Member
Here's stuff about Tablets:

If would-be customers don't have a Wikipad or a USB controller, though, how will they control their games? One of the major challenges for cloud gaming services like Gaikai is figuring out how to deal with the growing popularity of devices that only have touchscreens. Here, though, Gaikai has aces in the hole: Brendon Iribe just so happened to be the president, CEO, and co-founder of Scaleform before its acquisition by Autodesk last year.

If you're not familiar, Scaleform created an extremely popular middleware solution for building scalable video game user interfaces, used in blockbuster titles like Batman: Arkham City and Mass Effect 3. In fact, Iribe's also brought over his partner Michael Antonov, who was Scaleform's chief technology officer, and Gaikai just signed a deal to license Scaleform's tech last week. Surprise, surprise: the tablet and TV interfaces I've seen today were built on Scaleform, and the company's also prepping touchscreen controls for its Android app using the tool.

Gaikai engineer David Coles lets me take the rudimentary touchscreen UI for a spin, and while it's not particularly impressive at this early stage — just a virtual D-pad and some buttons — the vision is rather neat: You'll use your tablet as a touchscreen controller for your Gaikai-equipped television, then press a "Takeover" button and transfer the whole session to your tablet screen so you can take your game with you.
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Fredrik

Fredrik

Member
Oh my god

Megaton for sure

If "old" TV's will work with this too then we have a new big player in gaming. Watch them get it to run at Samsung Galaxy Tab and Samsung Galaxy S3 too and even Apple will start to sweat.
 
J

JaggedSac

Member
This wouldn't preclude Sony from purchasing Gaikai. I would assume Sony would rebrand it to a better name and still license it out to partners.
 
P

Principate

Saint Titanfall
Fredrik said:
Oh my god

Megaton for sure

If "old" TV's will work with this too then we have a new big player in gaming. Watch them get it to run at Samsung Galaxy Tab and Samsung Galaxy S3 too and even Apple will start to sweat.
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Doesn't it just work with smart TV's? (Samsung to be precise).
 
A

Afrikan

Member
out0v0rder said:
Sounds good for someone who has absolutely no gaming systems at all.
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or someone who owns a console with lots of exclusives...but doesn't own a gaming PC.

I'm interested in this.

but I wonder...Nintendo has all of their exclusives, and Sony has all of their Studios and exclusives....

Microsoft has started to add studios, but it seems that most of them are Kinect related. They still have Halo, Forza, most likely Gears. But for next gen are they going to rely on Kinect, to stand out from the other two competitors?

Will Micosoft also allow Kinect to be compatible with TVs like this Samsung one...and release Kinect games for these Cloud Gaming services?
 
A

Aklamarth

Member
Hahaha, relying on FW updates from Samsung is such a funny notion. Those assholes see software ONLY as something to make (more) money from.
 
H

HoosTrax

Member
TONX said:
ISP providers are salivating at this. So much overage charges to be had.
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Every time someone mentions something like this, I always thank my lucky stars that I can get Internet service from companies other than Comcast in my area. I did 200GB worth of downloads the month after Steam Winter Sale on a service plan that nominally has a 30GB per month cap without any complaints/throttling/overage fees from my ISP.
 
Fredrik

Fredrik

Member
Principate said:
Doesn't it just work with smart TV's? (Samsung to be precise).
Click to expand...
Yes but there are millions of those out there, Samung is huge in the TV business. I doubt that their 2010 or so models will get this, it's probably just the high end 2012 models, through firmware upgrades. Still huge though.
 
T

ThatCrazyGuy

Member
How much bandwidth do these streaming game services take up actually?? I know it will probably vary per game.

Seems like a huge deal for places with bandwidth caps and the like.
 
S

spwolf

Member
ThatCrazyGuy said:
How much bandwidth do these streaming game services take up actually?? I know it will probably vary per game.

Seems like a huge deal for places with bandwidth caps and the like.
Click to expand...

not that much, 5Mbs for Gaikai BUT you need to be close to their server centers.
 
E

Effect

Member
TONX said:
ISPs are salivating at this. So much overage charges to be had.
Click to expand...

This. I'd actually be willing to try this out if could get a good deal with a local ISP. I can't convince others in the house to go without cable/directv so going all in on internet isn't an option for me. That's something you'd need to do I think unless you're making a lot and can afford what an ISP/Cable company would charge you to cover the bandwidth that would be use to use this with any type of regularity along with other services.

Wouldn't you be pushing so much data (commands and video) with a service like this that it would make Netflix look like nothing by comparison? Or is that wrong?
 
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