Gaikai live trials EA games, plans advertising focus
Plans for a data centre 'in every major city" as cloud service goes live
Browser-based gaming service Gaikai is now available in 12 different countries worldwide, with Gaikai boss David Perry suggesting that the company's aim is to have a data centre in every major city.
Following a beta test program involving 11,000 users the Gaikai cloud computing technology is now available to anyone via a number of free online demos.
Writing on his personal blog Perry stated that the company's main focus now is on its advertising strategy, "where we can put any game anywhere on the web".
"Our objective has been to empower publishers and retailers to give gamers what they keep asking for... 'Let me try the game'", claims Perry.
Perry also directly compared Gaikai to YouTube: "instead of just building a portal to go and watch videos, they decided to focus on putting videos everywhere on the web. We are doing the same with games, so when you read a review on a game, you can try playing it right there on the same page as the review".
Perry also boasted of impending Game Developers Conference demos, where "we will show some really high-end, high-performance games running at 60Hz with no work needing to be done by the publishers/developers. We are really excited to have finally solved this incredible technical challenge".
The former Shiny Entertainment boss also writes of a goal to have data centres in "every major city in the world", to avoid latency problems. Currently the company operates only 24.
The service is initially being demonstrated with a number of EA published games, with Perry posting screenshots of Mass Effect 2 running from inside Facebook. Links from Perry's blog also point towards live demos of Dead Space 2, Spore, The Sims 3, and Second Life.