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Tag: Gaikai

  • OnLive patents acquired by Sony

    OnLive patents acquired by Sony

    In 2012, Sony acquired Gaikai, and turned the tech behind Gaikai into a service called “PlayStation Now.” Today, the direct competitor to Gaikai has announced that Sony Computer Entertainment has acquired the technology patents of OnLive. However, the terms of the agreement between SCE, and OnLive has not been discussed. Upon going to the OnLive website, you will be treated to this message from the OnLive team…

    If you go to the OnLive “Games” page, you will be treated to this message…

    After five years of uninterrupted service, the OnLive Game Service will be coming to an end. Sony is acquiring important parts of OnLive, and their plans don’t include a continuation of the game service in its current form. Your service should continue uninterrupted until April 30, 2015. No further subscription fees will be charged, and you can continue to play all of your games until that date.

    As the first-ever game streaming service of its kind, everyone who has ever played a game using OnLive has contributed to the technology and its evolution in some way. We’re immensely proud of what’s been achieved and extend our heartfelt gratitude to you for being a part of the OnLive Game Service.

    Thank you from all of us at –

    OL2, Inc. (aka, OnLive)

    If you go to the OnLive “SLGO” page, you will be treated to this message…

    It is with great sadness we must announce that OnLive’s SL Go service will be coming to an end. Sony is acquiring important parts of OnLive, and their plans don’t include a continuation of the SL Go service. However, your service should continue uninterrupted until April 30, 2015. No further subscription fees will be charged, and you can continue to enjoy SL Go on all of your devices until that date.

    In our year of SL Go service, we have become quite close to the Second Life® community. Thanks to your patronage and constructive feedback, SL Go became one of OnLive’s most successful services. We know how important SL Go is for many of you, and it saddens us to bring the service to a close. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to you for being a part of “SL Go by OnLive” and wish you all the best.

    With warmest regards,

    Everyone at OnLive

    If you go to the OnLive “Desktop” page, you will be treated to this message…

    After four years of service, the OnLive Desktop service will be coming to an end. Sony is acquiring important parts of OnLive, and, unfortunately, their plans don’t include a continuation of the OnLive Desktop service. Your service should continue uninterrupted until April 30, 2015. No further subscription fees will be charged, and you can continue to use the service until that date. We strongly suggest that you copy (i.e., make back-ups of) all of the files that you have stored in your OnLive Files folder prior to April 30, 2015. After that date, you will not be able to retrieve or recover copies of any of the files that were previously stored in your OnLive Files.

    We extend our heartfelt gratitude to you for being a part of the OnLive Desktop service.

    Thank you from all of us at –

    OL2, Inc. (aka, OnLive)

    What does this mean? Well, you won’t be able to use the OnLive service at all after April 30th, 2015. After that point, OnLive will start to wind down, and shut down all sections of the OnLive ecosystem. I quite liked the OnLive service, but there just wasn’t enough support for it.

  • PlayStation Now to be released Jan 13th

    PlayStation Now to be released Jan 13th

    PlayStation Now has a story that began in 2010. The whole idea didn’t take shape until August 2012, when Sony Computer Entertainment America acquired Gaikai for $380 million. Gaikai was founded in November 2008, Gaikai was a cloud streaming service in the games industry. In 2003, cloud hosting, cloud gaming, and everything in between had been growing exponentially, and hit an equilibrium when OnLive took the stage at GDC 2009. At this point, Gaikai, and OnLive was going head-to-head against each other, larger companies wanted a piece of their proverbial pie. A lot of speculation ensue: Microsoft was rumored to acquire OnLive, and Sony (& several other major players) were rumored that it wanted Gaikai. It all came down to one moment at E32012: Papers were signed, and speculations began… Sony was to announce that it had acquired Gaikai. Everything calmed, went radio silent until August, when Sony completed the purchase.

    In 2010, the first version of Gaikai was a public beta on desktops, tablets, mobile phones. At the PlayStation Meeting on February 21st, 2013, Dave Perry took the stage to make a teaser for PlayStation Now: Cloud Gaming, and Remote Play would come to PS4. No one knew what they meant by “Remote Play” was at the time, until E32013 when Sony had their own conference, revealed most of the PlayStation Now features including Remote Play. It was shown briefly during the conference to show off how the concept worked. They also said the public beta of PlayStation Now would arrive in 2014. The first public, live demo of Remote Play between PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation 4 was shown during GamesCom 2013, the demo showed how you can bring PS4 version of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, into PlayStation Vita.

    PSNow
    PlayStation Now – Sony’s Game Streaming service

    PlayStation 4’s launch on November 15th, 2013 was home to the early beta of Gaikai’s Cloud Streaming service, the PlayStation Now. The new and improved version of the PSVita-to-PS4 Remote Play was also launched at the same time. In 2014, Sony slowly rolled out PlayStation Now across the PlayStation Network to include PS3, and PSVita. The early betas of PlayStation Now was imperfect during both PlayStation 4’s launch, and beyond, but players sent information back to Sony to improve the service. Various pricing structures was beta tested during Summer 2014, through the new year. Which brings us to the new announcement: PlayStation Now launches on January 13th, 2015. Sony also revealed new pricing structures with the announcement…

    PlayStation Now costs $19.99 a month, and $44.99 for the duration of 3 months subscription. Sony will launch PlayStation Now with more than 100 PlayStation 3 games, with more on the way. Sony will hold a sweepstakes draw to give you a chance to win PlayStation Now for a whole year by downloading the PSNow theme on your PS3/PS4 before January 31st. Not only that, to help you ease into the whole “all-you-can-play” model, Sony is giving away 7 days free trial to the service.