Displaying items by tag: Cloud gaming

Microsoft’s $69 Billion wish list includes the acquisition of Activision Blizzard and all the goodies that it controls. This deal has been called the largest in gaming history and it should be. It involves a massive amount of money, and a large stockpile of AAA gaming IP. It would all be under Microsoft’s control. The deal has been approved by 37 different agencies (including the EU) and has two notable hold outs; the US FTC and the UK’s CMA. Microsoft has appealed the UK regulator’s move to block the deal while the FTC case is not set to be heard until August.

Yesterday we talked about how the Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal had been approved by the European Commission (on antitrust) touting licensing deals that were pro competition. As we stated in that article, the licensing agreements only extend to cloud gaming services, they exclude consoles and other non-Microsoft controlled hardware. The EC and Microsoft are calling this very pro-competition even though cloud gaming represents around 1% of the market.

It looks like the folks at the European Commission have decided that Microsoft buying out Activision Blizzard for $69 billion (with a B) is not going to be a violation of their antitrust rules. The approval means that there are only a few roadblocks to the deal going through. South Korea and China have not decided yet, while the US and UK have challenged it. The deal has been called the world’s biggest gaming takeover and is viewed by many as a bad thing for competition as it would leave Microsoft in control of a majority of game development groups.

The idea of the “cloud” is nothing new and has, in fact, been around for a number of years in one form or another. The concept goes back to the use of small “dumb” terminals that were nothing more than display devices for com putting done in a central location. After it became possible to put more power into the systems we used the cloud faded into the back ground. With the production of mobile devices that did not typically have the same power and capacity as a desktop the cloud returned. It had a major resurgence when the smartphone and tablet leaped onto the scene and now it seems that everything is trying to become cloud based; including gaming.

The company OnLive has launched CloudLift, a new cloud-gaming service that allows users to use the power of the cloud and play their favorite PC games purchased on one of the popular services for digital distribution of games - starting with steam, on any device.

Speaking at a recent press conference held in London, Microsoft's Phil Harrison explained that the future of their Xbox brand lies in the clouds, and explained that it is precisely this vision with which he came to Microsoft.

After we found out that OnLive faced financial disaster we expected that a new board would come to replace the one that led the company to bankruptcy, but looks like that is not the case. Steve Perlman get to keep his chair and remains CEO at OnLive. Their restructuring created a $40 million loss to HTC for what they invested in the company. I looks like the new investors believe that the former CEO can turn things around and make profit with their help.

There is certainly something going on in the software/gaming industry and from all of the information we have been able to get our hands on it is not looking good for the consumer. After showing you the reports that indicate a push for stronger control over mobile apps and that the US Government is becoming more and more interested in that space we are seeing  more companies cite fantastical numbers claiming rampant piracy. This time it is our friends over at Ubisoft and the claim is that 95% of their titles are pirated.

Quite a rumor is swirling around the tech world today. Supposedly EA is making preparatory efforts to sell their company. Furthermore, what adds credibility to this notion is that the “rumor” is being reported by the New York Post and not some random dime-a-dozen blog on the internet.

Cloud gaming platform, OnLive, was a very promising project, but never fulfilled its potential. The idea behind the project was to run all types of games on computers hosted in OnLive data centers and stream the video back to the end user. That way a customer can have a low-end PC and still play high-end games. The only thing required for it is to be able to play video and a decent internet connection (5 Mbit/s or faster). All games were available in 720p format, provided by over 50 publishers (Sega, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Atari, THQ, Eidos Interactive, Take-Two Interactive etc.).