In the overarching transition to the digital gaming age, Sony’s online streaming service Gaikai acts as a crucial stepping stone for the industry. And today, Andrew House – the company’s president – announced that the online, cloud-based system will become available exclusively for Playstation 4 during the first segment of 2014.
Building upon their initial reveal in February, Sony delved into the minutia of the promising feature, which will bestow a key upon Playstation gamers that opens up access to a wealth of existing titles. This library of games will then become available to play on the company’s existing hardware, namely the Playstation 3, Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita – mind you, Gaikai will be delayed for the latter device. Also, this feature will launch first in the United States and release details for other regions are unavailable at this point in time. In saying that, Sony stated that the streaming system will “evolve over the coming months,” so further information can’t be far away.
Gaikai’s service gives consumers the ability to instantly stream games and demos to their respective Sony system and is poised to resonate with the instantaneous nature of the Playstation 4. Whether it’s an endearing means of backwards compatibility or merely a blatant method of monetising nostalgia is something I’ll let you ponder over for yourself, though.
Perhaps in the coming months we’ll discover just how big Gaikai’s gaming library is but, until then, give us your thoughts in the comments underneath!