Des Laffey is Senior Lecturer in E-commerce at Kent Business School, University of Kent and comments on the following recent BBC news item:
‘E3: Samsung signs Smart TV cloud gaming deal with Gaikai‘
Samsung-Gaikai cloud gaming partnership offers content and distribution:
The announcement by Samsung that it will trial cloud based gaming from Gaikai on its Smart TVs to US consumers demonstrates how far technology is reshaping our lives. From this deal Samsung obtain content to make their smart TVs more attractive and in turn Samsung enable games to be distributed to a wider audience.
What are smart TVs and cloud gaming?
Smart TVs offers the ability for consumers to access the Web and online services through their home broadband. This means that a range of content can be accessed through a smart TV such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and video services such as BBC iPlayer, Netlix and LoveFilm. Wireless devices can also be connected so, for example, you could listen to music from your iPod through your Smart TV.
Cloud gaming involves users streaming games from a remote server instead of having to purchase a gaming console and games. Gaikai are one of the firms who provide the infrastructure to make cloud gaming happen and have partnerships with several games publishers.
What are the advantages of cloud gaming?
Samsung: The move to offer cloud based gaming offers further content for the smart TV enhancing the attractiveness of the device.
Consumers: Games written for the Xbox and Playstation platforms will be made available to smart TV users removing the need to purchase consoles or games and for games publishers.
Gaikai: Will be paid by Samsung to provide the cloud gaming infrastructure.
Games publishers: The streaming of games makes piracy much more difficult and may encourage consumers to publish the full game.
And the disadavantages of cloud gaming?
Cloud gaming relies on fast and reliable broadband and in the current environment this will not offer a superior gaming experience as speed is crucial. Also, don’t most homes have a gaming console?
The future of cloud gaming?
As broadband becomes faster and more reliable cloud gaming will offer a better experience to gamers. We have seen the growth of video streaming services such as Netflix through gaming consoles and now we see TVs being used for gaming. Many more innovations will appear as a broadband economy offers almost endless opportunities and the term smart TV will become as common as smartphone as the technology becomes standard in lower priced TVs.