There was – and unfortunately still is – an everlasting competition on upgrading your own gaming computer to have something better and more extreme than your friends do. This tendency always follows the latest trends, a system powerful enough to run the latest games at highest resolutions without ever being slow or overloaded.
Cloud gaming companies have begun and will continue crushing this competition forever and turning it into a competition between the cloud gaming companies themselves. How they are achieving this? By using cloud computing.
As we’ve hopefully read and studied (just as information, as basic knowledge of what’s new), cloud computing makes a new space where power is in sharing resources, storage space, thus making it possible to solve anything from any computer with an internet connection. Yes, you can have your own files, important data, photo albums, your daily office applications, your music and slowly everything “in the cloud”. That cloud I am referring here is a huge system of powerful – or less powerful – machines linked together to form one super-performance computer. This is where cloud gaming comes into picture!
Imagine all of the newest computer or console games running from the cloud. That would simply mean that you’ll no longer need an expensive personal computer or an extensive gaming console in order to play your favorite games – your games will be on the servers of the cloud gaming companies and you just log in through your internet connection and enjoy playing, you only need a computer strong enough to send/receive data in time and to display a live video stream in time (which is the actual video while you are playing your game). Amazing, isn’t it?
I will now mention a couple of the most popular cloud gaming companies and what they basically offer!
Gaikai
Gaikai is announced to be purchased by Sony as soon as the conditions and papers are all solved. Besides this purchase that is announced, Gaikai is one of the best and most-known cloud gaming companies.
The PC games and console games you’d play through Gaikai can be played with such an ease! You only need your web browser, their login platform (a website), Adobe Flash Player and Java runtime installed on your system – which is probably already installed for various websites and running online Java applets.
Games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty 4 are playable with Gaikai.
OnLive
OnLive is another great choice when it comes to cloud gaming companies. It has some restrictions on which systems it runs on, but Windows XP and above, as well as Mac systems with Mac OS version newer than 10.5.8 and tablets, smart phones can all work with OnLive.
OnLive has High Definition video as a response from the server and is promised to work with low-end computers as well as long as these can play the streamed video.
Itsmy
To support the mobile gamers as well, itsmy is the new service to provide cloud gaming for mobile users. It’s fairly new, you can check their websites for updates on their services and announcements!
Read the rest of this entry