58 |^ |^ August 2019
S
tadia is far from the first of
its kind. The notion of
streaming-based gaming
platforms has been around
for close to two decades, ever since
YouTube exploded in popularity in
the mid-noughties. To be able to
play games without ever having
to purchase and download them
does sound attractive, but the
execution has always been flawed.
The theoreticals were first
demonstrated by G-cluster at the
2000 Electronics Entertainment
Expo, with Crytek investigating the
possibilities a few years later before
shelving the idea due to concerns
about consumer Internet speeds.
The first big hitter to take on
the challenge of a streaming-only
game platform was OnLive, a
Californian company that
specialized in cloud computing. Its
flagship product was its proprietary
cloud gaming service of the same
name, first announced at GDC
2009, exactly one decade before
Google decided to take a shot at
the crown at the same event.
OnLive managed to gather some
real traction in 2011, capable of
operating on multiple versions of
Windows and MacOS X, as well as
Android smartphones, tablets, and
even some smart TVs. This was
followed by the announcement of
its own game system, referred to as
the OnLive MicroConsole TV
Adapter. Unlike its name, the
console was a compact affair with a
wireless controller, capable of
turning any TV into a gaming
screen with little more than an
HDMI cable and an Ethernet
connection.
Sadly, all was not well. OnLive
folded in 2012, resulting in
numerous lay-offs and sale of
assets – though the story wasn’t
quite over. A new company was
formed – also called OnLive –
running a smaller team and shifting
focus by 2014 to a new service
called CloudLift, which used
cloud-based storage to allow
gamers to switch between devices
while playing the same game. A
year later, though, in came Sony,
buying up all of OnLive’s assets,
and announcing that it would be
shutting down all of its services.
Why was Sony so eager to snap it
up? We’ll get to that.Sony streaming
Around the same time, another
Californian company named Gaikai
was doing its best to perfect the
tech. Early demos were impressive;
games could be embedded on
websites using Adobe Flash Player,
and it demonstrated triple-A games
such as Modern Warfare running
effectively on tablets and PCs with
a sufficiently fast Internet
connection. Gaikai enjoyed some
success in 2011 and 2012, running a
service model called the Ad
Network, which enabled websites
to stream demos of games and
receive a portion of marketing
revenue. It also ran an Open
Platform model, enabling the
streaming of full games to a variety
of devices.
Then, later in 2012, in swooped
Sony, snapping up Gaikai for a
hefty $380 million. Gaikai’s tech
was put to good use at Sony,
forming the basis for the
PlayStation 4’s Remote Play
function. Remote Play had actually
been around for a while at this
point, available on the
PlayStation 3, but it had to be
integrated into games on a
software level by developers. Very
few releases had this function,
because developers weren’t willing
to devote resources to supporting
Sony’s ailing PSP and PS Vita sales- there were only 14 physical
releases that supported the
Remote Play service across the
PS3’s entire lifespan.
The PS4, on the other hand, had
Remote Play built into the
hardware. With Sony taking the
leap and installing the functionality
on every PS4, the option of dipping
out for game devs was gone: If you
wanted your game on Sony’s
platform, it had to be compatible.
Lo and behold, a home console that
could stream to your handheld
anywhere with a decent Internet
connection. This Gaikai-powered
tech was relatively effective –
latency still meant that high-
intensity online shooters were out
of the picture, but the principles of
the software were sound. The main
PATRICK WEEKERS, UTOMIK GROWTH DIRECTOR
Gaikai’s service didn’t survive acquisition by Sony.PS Now contains games from three console generations.Utomik still requires games to be installed on your PC.Jump is dedicated to supporting indie developers.“That barrier isn’t something you
can punch through with capital”