Sony purchase of Gaikai validates cloud gaming says OnLive
OnLive, however, doesn't see the value in being acquired itself as it may limit the number of devices it could reach
Update: We've edited our headline from the original post. OnLive informs us that it was not commenting directly about Sony. "Bruce Grove's comments were only about OnLive and how its technology might be best used, not about any other platform," a spokesperson told us.
Original story:
Cloud gaming is in its infancy, enough to where any big move or acquisition has as much power to hurt, as it has to help the success of a gaming style that espouses playing games anytime and anywhere. Gaikai's $380 million sale to Sony has become one of the first big moves for cloud gaming, signaling that the technology has been "validated," according to OnLive UK general manager Bruce Grove.
"It has validated it," said Grove. "It's good for us, good for the market and it will help drive the idea further. And Sony's a consumer devices company so for them it's an opportunity across all of that hardware."
While Grove is happy for Gaikai's success, he added that he has his reservations about being acquired. Earlier rumors of a potential buyout from both Microsoft and Sony towards OnLive and Gaikai had been swirling around for some time. While the sale means that the big manufacturers are interested, it could very well mean limitation for OnLive's dream.
"If that was to happen - and that's pure speculation - that's really up to the company involved, but I think it kind of defeats the purpose of cloud gaming to limit it to a subset of devices," said Grove. "The whole point of putting anything into the cloud is to make it available on everything."
"The whole reason I have a Dropbox account is that I want to access my files from any device - it doesn't matter whether it's my Samsung phone or my iPad, PC or Mac. That's the key to the idea of cloud technology."
"For [OnLive] it was very important to show that this was viable technology and create a new platform, not to just take the first step along the road," he remarked. "We can argue the pros and cons over which is the right model but this is what we set out to do - create a platform."
"There's no reason that as Smart TVs become more ubiquitous that we can't be in all of them. As long as we can put the client on there and as long as it can stream video and take input there's no reason for OnLive not to be on that device - and that basically turns everything into a console."
[via Edge]