The rise of the “cloud’s” impact on the future of gaming has companies fighting for a seat at the online streaming round table in a vicious game of musical chairs. Apparently, Sony’s cloud gaming pact with Microsoft has left PlayStation the first odd man out.
Sony and Microsoft announced a partnership to co-develop streaming technology and support some of PlayStation’s online services on Microsoft’s Azure.
These negotiations started last year and were handled by Sony’s upper management in Tokyo, this must have been on the hush-hush because according to Bloomberg:
“Staff at the gaming division were caught off-guard by the news. Managers had to calm workers and assure them that plans for the company’s next-generation console weren’t affected, said the people, asking not to be identified discussing private matters.”
The name of the game seems to be whoever has access to the best cloud-computer provider wins. Sony only had PlayStation Now, which was okay at best. They’re competing in the ring with streaming heavyweights like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft who are all building their own cloud-gaming services.
“Sony feels threatened by this trend and the mighty Google, and has decided to leave its network infrastructure build-up to Microsoft,” said Asymmetric Advisors strategist Amir Anvarzadeh. “Why would they sleep with the enemy unless they feel threatened?”
So who really has the upper hand here? Is this a smart move for Sony or pure desperation? More importantly, where does this leave the actual Gamers? Back in the day, our biggest issue was deciding which game we would buy based off of how cool the cover was or how hyped the article was in GameInformer.
Until the dust settles and the round table is established we might not know what to expect when it comes to the actual performance of these streaming services let alone delivering a solid gaming experience.
Source: Bloomberg
