If you have not yet heard of GaiKai, listen up cause this could change everything. GaiKai is cloud computing technology that will allow for quick access to games through a browser. Full 3D top tier games streamed from their servers right to your browser, with no plugins or installation of any type necessary. Want to try a new game? Go check it out, you don't have to buy a box and install it, you don't have to download the game, just access it through GaiKai's technology. Cloud gaming has the potential to change everything, and for the better if you ask me. Check out the video below from David Perry, CEO of Acclaim, where GaiKai gets shown in a technical demonstration:
Now, we've seen something like this before from OnLive. Earlier this year at GDC09 OnLive stole the show with their presentation, spawning talk of wonder, amazement and skepticism all at the same time. It likely stole the thunder from GaiKai, who I assume wasn't quite ready to show their technology. Almost immediately after OnLive's announcment Mr. Perry announced the existence of GaiKai, stating that he felt his hand was forced by OnLive's announcement and that he couldn't keep the project secret any more.
While GaiKai is similar in some ways, it differs in a few key areas. Fundamentally these are both centralized game server farms that stream the games out to their users. Their business models are very different and their underlying technology is likely not the same. Mr. Perry seems to be more forthcoming about the technology, instantly trying to silence the potential skeptics with some key facts as stated on his blog:
(1) No installing anything. (I'm running regular Windows Vista, with the latest Firefox and Flash is installed.)
(2) This is a low-spec server, it's a very custom configuration, fully virtualized. Why? To keep the costs to an absolute minimum. We had 7 Call of Duty games running on our E3 demo server recently.
(3) Data travel distance is around 800 miles (round trip) on this demo as that's where the server is. I get a 21 millisecond ping on that route. My final delay will be 10 milliseconds as I just added a server in Irvine California yesterday, but it's not added to our grid yet. (So this demo is twice the delay I personally would get, the good news is I don't notice it anyway.)
(4) This server is not hosted by a Tier 1 provider, just a regular Data Center in Freemont California. Also, I'm not cheating and using fiber connections for our demos. This is a home cable connection in a home.
(5) We don't claim to have 5,000 pages of patents, we didn't take 7 years, and we do not claim to have invented 1 millisecond encryption and custom chips. As you can see, we don't need them, and so our costs will be much less. ;)
(6) We designed this for the real internet. The codecs change based on the need of the application, and based on the hardware you have. (Like Photoshop must be pixel perfect.)
(7) Our bandwidth is mostly sub 1 megabit across all games. (Works with Wifi, works on netbooks with no 3D card etc.)
(8) If you hear any clicks, they are coming from my wireless headset microphone. I won't use that next time I promise. :)
(9) I made a few video cuts using Windows Movie maker to cut out dead air. Like Need for Speed has far to many menus with loads & delays between them. So I tried to keep the pace up so you see plenty of demos.
Mr. Perry has the benefit of seeing what the skeptics have said about OnLive, which I believe really helps him to make a few key points here. With the knowledge of what skeptics have said about OnLive, he is able to indirectly take a shot or two at the OnLive guys with his statements above in sections (bolded by me for emphasis) #4 and #5. To me, this is his way of being very believable in presenting this technology so that people don't feel like they may be seeing something with alot of smoke and mirrors to produce it.
All the hype in cloud gaming has revolved around OnLive to this point, but don't forget about GaiKai, which is possibly a better technology and likely with a better business model. The first obstacle is getting the technology right, since there are so many pitfalls that surround cloud gaming. The harder part is getting it to market and being successful. Both services have this issues to deal with, so GaiKai shares in these struggles with OnLive.
I think the gaming analysts (I somewhat consider myself to be in this group) have had their heads in their asses based on some previous things they've said about gaming, especially this guy. However, I happen to agree with them that we may have seen the last generation of game consoles, albeit for different reasons. I think that the maturation of cloud gaming will mean that consoles only need to have enough horsepower to run a thin client, possibly even without a hard drive. Whether you agree with that assessment or not, you've got to agree that these technologies are extremely interesting at bare minimum.
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4 comments:
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July 1, 2009 4:03 PM
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July 1, 2009 6:40 PM
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July 2, 2009 1:34 PM
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July 3, 2009 10:20 PM
blog comments powered by DisqusI think more important than technology details will be whether the funding is complete and servers are close enough to enough users, and whether or not they license enough interesting games.
This is the kind of thing where one or two key licenses could turn one of these into the BluRay and one into HD DVD.
I'm not sure about the wisdom of doing a demo like this over streaming video. It was difficult to me to tell if the bit of lag I was seeing was from their technology or from the video. I'm fairly sure it was the video, but again, it's hard to tell.
The most interesting technical comment was, "Notice there's no Windows running in the background, this is our own OS." This is blowing my mind a bit. If this is the case then this is a truly mammoth undertaking and it gives me some confidence that they have the monetary backing to make it work.
Also, I was thinking the same thing as Genda except with Betamax and VHS, because I'm old.
I still think Onlive will be the more successful cloud gaming system. Just my opinion.
pretty cool, though i think ISPs would be pissed if their customers were using this sort of service. like comcast, i know they have a 250gb bandwith limit a month. though, it might be less than that.