GaiKai Beta To Start In Europe "Later This Month" 121
Alison Beasley sends word that GaiKai, the cloud gaming service being developed by games industry vet Dave Perry, is about to begin beta testing in Europe. (Sign-up page.) GaiKai is a competitor to OnLive, which started beta tests of its own recently. IGN got a chance to try out GaiKai for themselves, and they've posted a video showing how it performed. From Perry's announcement:
"Our closed beta has two goals. #1 is to bring our servers to their knees so we can choose the final configuration before we start ordering large quantities of them. (We think we have it worked out, but you can be certain our staff will be swapping cards and testing different processors as each day goes by.) Goal #2 is to test older computers. We've had lots of emails from people describing their computers and 99% of them have ample performance. Remember you don't even need a 3D card to see a 3D game run on our service. I know this is strangely counter to what people expect, but we actually want to get plenty of basic office-grade XP machines testing so we can make sure we can reach the widest audience possible. ... After we choose the hardware configuration in Europe, our next phase will be our USA Nationwide Network Test, that will be using 8 Tier-1 Data Centers, getting hammered by Closed Beta testers. During that process, [we] will be identifying the other data centers we need to include to blanket the USA in a low latency array. Phase 2 of that is Europe, in exactly the same test."
Where are the controllers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Where are the controllers? Keyboard access blows chunks.
Re:Streaming games (Score:4, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you ;) As a UK broadband customer (albeit one who doesn't need much bandwidth), I can't see the ISPs offering the kind of levels that people expect in the US and other nations for a hell of a long time yet.
Someone commented on digital downloads recently that it was okay because 4GB was only a "small amount" of your average 30GB+ monthly cap. 30GB+? You're probably talking £30+ per month in the UK on top of your £12 per month phone line charge and some contorted "acceptable use policy", not the entry level £10-£15 that most people use.
Re:It looks like it works (Score:1, Insightful)
Publishers get virtually bulletproof DRM by releasing games for a service like this, even better than they have with consoles. And it's not "DRM" like we hate on slashdot - they simply don't give you a copy of the game at all.
Why would you list this as an advantage?
Re:It looks like it works (Score:1, Insightful)
1. The market prices for games will go down, since EVERYONE is paying for it.
Ahahahahahahaha hahahaha hahahaha...
Re:It looks like it works (Score:1, Insightful)
LOL!
I agree, why would someone with the only an endless supply and no competition lower the price of a game?
There is no supply/demand chart, since supply is endless. You don't have any competition for the same product, true you have competition for "similar" products, but that is just the same as today. Let's face it, the price point will be where the profit is maximized, there is no reason to lower it just because more people buy it, in fact the opposite is probably true, once you have produced the best game in a genre (let's say Rally racing game), and the public knows this, then you have no reason to charge less than any other rally game and as long as the end revenue is higher you can just keep on raising the fees to play until you start losing too many costumers.
Cloud gaming would be the death of fair pricing for computer games.
Re:Tell me this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Won't work. Can't work.
If youtube can't start playing a hd video without buffering first, They won't be able to live stream a game with an acceptable resolution. We're talking instant video-compression and streaming to multiple users without visible lag. The technology allowing this just isn't available anywhere right now.
Download limits (Score:2, Insightful)
Streaming videos or games will not work as long as these caps are there. And seeing how my ISP also delivers us video on demand (which doesn't count towards my download limit) I really can't see them eager to change this.
If you ask me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where are the controllers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you typed that post by moving a cursor over an on-screen keyboard and hitting an action button to select each letter, I suggest you get the fuck out of here and back to your console.
Come on, the video shows them playing Mario Kart 64. You want an analogue stick to play that.