When Sony announced the Playstation 4 at yesterdays Playstation Meeting event, there’s no denying that many spectators around the world were impressed with the connectivity. It’s clear that purchasing game streaming company Gaikai was a chess move for Sony because they have been able to completely revamp the network architecture for Playstation 4, with the help of Gaikai. As demonstrated yesterday PS4 will allow gamers to stream games before they finish downloading fully as well as allowing gamers to broadcast their gaming session to their friends. They made everything look seamless with no delay, which left me with my jaw wide open in disbelief.
Now people have been casting doubts over Microsoft‘s ability to compete with this level of functionality. It’s assumed that Playstation’s purchase of Gaikai has instantly given them the upper-hand advantage over Microsoft. However people are quickly forgetting that Microsoft already have something under their sleeves, and the information has been right under our noses this whole time.
Last year OnLive, the company who aimed to revolutionize cloud gaming unfortunately closed their doors. And following the announcement of Sony buying Gaikai, Microsoft held an event in which they invited all the former OnLive employees. This lead to Microsoft recruiting the majority of OnLive’s previous employers. In my eyes this is confirmation that Microsoft aims to completely outdo Sony when it comes to cloud gaming.
Apparently Microsoft were also actively trying to acquire OnLive even before Sony purchased Gaikai, but the CEO Steve Perlman had no desire for the company to be acquired. This worked out better for Microsoft, because instead of paying a handsome fee outright for the company, all they had to do was wait for Onlive to fall and employ their staff. All of this is information that has been forgotten, lost in the shuffle thanks to the abundance of other headlines. But this is factual evidence that Microsoft has already been developing their answer to cloud gaming.
With the race to next generation success already commencing, it’s clear that cloud gaming and the streaming of video games will play a significant role. This forgotten tidbit of information should clearly remove any doubt about Microsoft’s ability to match Sony when it comes time to reveal their next gen platform.
