Okay, so it sort of seems like when it comes to gaming, Sony is kind of screwed. We know there’s a new Xbox on the way from Microsoft and it’s being positioned as a home entertainment hub that also happens to play games. We know Nintendo’s WiiU is on the way soon. But Sony? The PlayStation 4 is coming but not for a while. And the PlayStation Network got severely hacked recently and is dependent on existing hardware anyway.
Solution: perhaps going to the cloud! Sony is buying the cloud gaming company Gaikai for $380 million.
Sony could use this technology in multiple ways. For instance, it could use Gaikai to run older PlayStation 3 games on its upcoming PlayStation 4, without having to convert those games through a tortuous process known as porting, which would be effectively rewriting PS 3 games to run on a PS 3. That allows Sony to design the processor and graphics of the PlayStation 4 in any way it wants, without worrying about backward compatibility of the console. That in turn could reduce the costs of the PS 4 dramatically, allowing the company to sell its console for less money. That’s important because the PS 3 initial $600 price was an albatross around Sony’s neck during this console war.
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