Comments on: Is Gaikai going to enable us to play all our games for free? http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/is-gaikai-going-to-enable-us-to-play-all-our-games-for-free/ The Business of Games Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:58:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Sharer » Blog Archive » F2P深度解析（6）：云计算游戏公司Gaikai对F2P模式的影响 http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/is-gaikai-going-to-enable-us-to-play-all-our-games-for-free/comment-page-1/#comment-11949 Sharer » Blog Archive » F2P深度解析（6）：云计算游戏公司Gaikai对F2P模式的影响 Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:06:15 +0000 http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/is-gaikai-going-to-enable-us-to-play-all-our-games-for-free/#comment-11949 [...] Via GB [...] [...] Via GB [...]

]]> By: Luke Halliwell http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/is-gaikai-going-to-enable-us-to-play-all-our-games-for-free/comment-page-1/#comment-4372 Luke Halliwell Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:29:38 +0000 http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/is-gaikai-going-to-enable-us-to-play-all-our-games-for-free/#comment-4372 Setting aside all technical doubts about these services (this and OnLive), let's assume they work more or less, and look at them purely from the consumer's point of view. I think they claim to offer two principal benefits:<br>1 No need to own high-end gaming hardware (making the big assumption that the service is so good that you can get your entire gaming fix this way!)<br>2 A different way to pay for content - as you say, possibly free and ad-supported, possibly pay-per-play, whatever.<br><br>(1) is just not that compelling for me (unless you're talking about emerging markets, perhaps) - hardware is incredibly cheap nowadays.<br><br>(2) is the real question. I think this would be really compelling for me as a consumer, although I'd prefer to see it implemented differently - there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to play games via this business model on my own hardware. MS could extend XBox live to make this a first-class way of experiencing games: free download, pay per play, ad supported, whatever. The benefit of doing this is that I wouldn't suffer from the expected controller lag and reduced graphical quality that these streamed games services are bound to have. If MS provided good APIs for doing this, they could make it easy for publishers to develop games that work this way.<br><br>I don't know whether platform holders have held off from doing this because their publishing partners aren't interested in changing their business model? Or whether they just haven't got around to it yet? One possible outcome here is that these streamed services fail, but force the existing platforms to move in this direction, which would be a good thing for consumers. Setting aside all technical doubts about these services (this and OnLive), let's assume they work more or less, and look at them purely from the consumer's point of view. I think they claim to offer two principal benefits:
1 No need to own high-end gaming hardware (making the big assumption that the service is so good that you can get your entire gaming fix this way!)
2 A different way to pay for content – as you say, possibly free and ad-supported, possibly pay-per-play, whatever.

(1) is just not that compelling for me (unless you're talking about emerging markets, perhaps) – hardware is incredibly cheap nowadays.

(2) is the real question. I think this would be really compelling for me as a consumer, although I'd prefer to see it implemented differently – there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to play games via this business model on my own hardware. MS could extend XBox live to make this a first-class way of experiencing games: free download, pay per play, ad supported, whatever. The benefit of doing this is that I wouldn't suffer from the expected controller lag and reduced graphical quality that these streamed games services are bound to have. If MS provided good APIs for doing this, they could make it easy for publishers to develop games that work this way.

I don't know whether platform holders have held off from doing this because their publishing partners aren't interested in changing their business model? Or whether they just haven't got around to it yet? One possible outcome here is that these streamed services fail, but force the existing platforms to move in this direction, which would be a good thing for consumers.

]]> By: Luke Halliwell http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/is-gaikai-going-to-enable-us-to-play-all-our-games-for-free/comment-page-1/#comment-3509 Luke Halliwell Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:29:38 +0000 http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/is-gaikai-going-to-enable-us-to-play-all-our-games-for-free/#comment-3509 Setting aside all technical doubts about these services (this and OnLive), let's assume they work more or less, and look at them purely from the consumer's point of view. I think they claim to offer two principal benefits:<br>1 No need to own high-end gaming hardware (making the big assumption that the service is so good that you can get your entire gaming fix this way!)<br>2 A different way to pay for content - as you say, possibly free and ad-supported, possibly pay-per-play, whatever.<br><br>(1) is just not that compelling for me (unless you're talking about emerging markets, perhaps) - hardware is incredibly cheap nowadays.<br><br>(2) is the real question. I think this would be really compelling for me as a consumer, although I'd prefer to see it implemented differently - there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to play games via this business model on my own hardware. MS could extend XBox live to make this a first-class way of experiencing games: free download, pay per play, ad supported, whatever. The benefit of doing this is that I wouldn't suffer from the expected controller lag and reduced graphical quality that these streamed games services are bound to have. If MS provided good APIs for doing this, they could make it easy for publishers to develop games that work this way.<br><br>I don't know whether platform holders have held off from doing this because their publishing partners aren't interested in changing their business model? Or whether they just haven't got around to it yet? One possible outcome here is that these streamed services fail, but force the existing platforms to move in this direction, which would be a good thing for consumers. Setting aside all technical doubts about these services (this and OnLive), let's assume they work more or less, and look at them purely from the consumer's point of view. I think they claim to offer two principal benefits:
1 No need to own high-end gaming hardware (making the big assumption that the service is so good that you can get your entire gaming fix this way!)
2 A different way to pay for content – as you say, possibly free and ad-supported, possibly pay-per-play, whatever.

(1) is just not that compelling for me (unless you're talking about emerging markets, perhaps) – hardware is incredibly cheap nowadays.

(2) is the real question. I think this would be really compelling for me as a consumer, although I'd prefer to see it implemented differently – there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to play games via this business model on my own hardware. MS could extend XBox live to make this a first-class way of experiencing games: free download, pay per play, ad supported, whatever. The benefit of doing this is that I wouldn't suffer from the expected controller lag and reduced graphical quality that these streamed games services are bound to have. If MS provided good APIs for doing this, they could make it easy for publishers to develop games that work this way.

I don't know whether platform holders have held off from doing this because their publishing partners aren't interested in changing their business model? Or whether they just haven't got around to it yet? One possible outcome here is that these streamed services fail, but force the existing platforms to move in this direction, which would be a good thing for consumers.

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