Perry: Gaikai should be added to PlayStation 4 and current-gen Sony consoles

[Blacksite]

Cloud gaming tech Gaikai should be added to the current generation of Sony consoles and PlayStation 4, David Perry has told Eurogamer.

Perry, who has just sold Gaikai to Sony for $380 million, now works for the console maker, and he intends to have as much influence on the PS4 as possible.

"It's a given it should go across the current and next-generation hardware," Perry said in an interview at the Develop conference in Brighton.

"But it's a case of, we have to let them decide what they want to do. I don't want to put words in their mouth.

"We've been experimenting with every single platform. Set top boxes, TVs, mobile devices, tablets, everything. Will it work on consoles? The answer is: absolutely. We've done tests. It definitely works."

Sony is rumoured to be preparing to launch PS4 in late 2013, with an announcement pegged for some time next year. Now Perry is on board, he is uniquely placed to play a crucial role in the development of the hardware.

"I'm going to get to see a console launch from the inside," he said. "I'm excited about that. I've never done that before."

The PlayStation 4 is "very important", Perry said. "There's so much happening right now in the industry. The consoles, if done right, become the anchor. But they need to embrace all the changes in technologies that have been happening, and business models.

"They have to evolve. You can't just make the same console as last time. You have to build something that's revolutionary. That's what I will be pushing towards."

Perry stressed that he will as best he can push Sony to make PS4 a game machine first and foremost - despite the current trend for consoles to feature more and more non-gaming applications.

"I'm certainly going to remind them what I feel about PlayStation. What I feel about PlayStation is, when I'm thinking of buying a game - I don't know how they've done it but the branding has somehow got me there - if I'm trying to find where the best version is, I just automatically go, well that would be the PlayStation version, right? I don't know, the branding worked on me.

"The amount of energy and money and branding and whatever they've done to get me there, don't lose that. That's so valuable. Don't lose that. Let's double down on that."

But what influence will Perry have on the major decision makers within Sony?

"The thing that's great with Sony is we're not way down the stack in some little sub sub sub of a sub sub company. PlayStation is insanely important to Sony and we're dealing with the top people in Sony for gaming.

"We'll be heard. It doesn't mean they're going to do what I say. Don't get me wrong. But I can at least be heard and I hope they like what I've got to say."

With the ink still fresh on the contract between Gaikai and Sony Computer Entertainment, Perry is yet to discuss in detail how the gargantuan Japanese company intends to make use of its fancy new tech. In fact, after he's done with the Develop conference this week, Perry will work on a presentation he will then deliver to the top gaming executives at Sony detailing his ideas for Gaikai.

"Now the deal is done, only now are we going to start having those conversations on what Sony wants to do. What is their strategy? It's their company now so they have to decide what exactly they want to do. There are a lot of pieces to Sony. It's a big company. There is consumer electronics, DVD players and TVs. All of them can be impacted by this.

"So there are going to be a lot of discussions and a lot of meetings."

Reports suggest Sony will use Gaikai to power backwards compatibility on PS3, enabling access to the huge back catalogue of PSone and PS2 games through streaming.

Perry was unable to confirm details, but he did say he was excited about the impact of Gaikai on PlayStation. "I've been saying for quite some time now, how people plan their days around moving data around, like, I'm going to start five games downloading and I'll come back tomorrow.

"It's a really big boon for gamers because they'll be able to play pretty much everything that comes out with no effort."

Given issues with latency and image quality associated with cloud gaming, one concern is that Gaikai will, in its current form, be unable to truly offer a PlayStation-level experience.

Perry rejected this suggestion. "Can the games look ridiculously awesome? No question about it," he insisted. "To do it really really well, you need to stay on the track we were on, and our track was to make special hardware, like working with Nvidia and people like that."

Source

[DeviousOne]

Def possible and very interesting...

[daLa]

I just hope something great comes out of this.

[akhi216]

IMO getting a PS+ subscription would easily be justified by being able to stream games that are purchased from PSN. This would solve low memory issues of purchasers of PlayStation systems (who have a consistent +3 MB connection of course) and make PS+ subscriptions that much more attractive. Hell I'd kill to be able to stream PS3 titles on my Vita.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

[keefy]

Its just a HD video stream of course its possible on all current consoles.

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Perry stressed that he will as best he can push Sony to make PS4 a game machine first and foremost - despite the current trend for consoles to feature more and more non-gaming applications.

He won't have to do any pushing in this regard. lol

[Blacksite]

He brings up a good point though. With the PSone, you could play games and maybe listen to music. Then came the PS2, which allowed for gamers to watch movies with their DVDs and was also backwards compatible with the PSone - two reasons the Sega Dreamcast eventually bit the dust.

But now we have consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 that can do so much more. Although sometimes I wonder what it would be like if these gaming consoles didn't include so many different features and services.

[Fon]

Like I've said before, Gaikai can be used on Playstation 3 but it would be an excellent addition for the next generation Playstation. If used properly, Sony won't need a next gen console after the fourth one. But this idea probably won't be fully embraced in a few years so a good strategy to use here is built a powerful console first, release their latest games and whatnot - 5 years down the PS4's life and developers will start to fully utilize Gaikai for peaked performance games without the worry of limitations.

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Like I've said before, Gaikai can be used on Playstation 3 but it would be an excellent addition for the next generation Playstation. If used properly, Sony won't need a next gen console after the fourth one. But this idea probably won't be fully embraced in a few years so a good strategy to use here is built a powerful console first, release their latest games and whatnot - 5 years down the PS4's life and developers will start to fully utilize Gaikai for peaked performance games without the worry of limitations.

Yeah with upgradeable performance without the user having to buy the upgrades, cloud gaming has the potential to completely trump PC gaming...By the time PS5 is due Sony will have invested a lot into the tech. I played NFS:The Runs () or whatever it's called and it looked and played great. With a few years who knows where it will be at.