Gaikai Beta Gets Rolling

[Andy Chalk]

Gaikai Beta Gets Rolling

The Gaikai [http://www.gaikai.com] "open beta" has quietly begun, with invitations being passed out to potential testers 10,000 at a time.

Ten days ago, Dave Perry said the Gaikai open beta could begin in his blog [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105113-Gaikai-Open-Beta-Could-Begin-in-Ten-Days] that Gaikai "silently sent out a blast of 1000 invites around the world" on Sunday and went that went smoothly, followed up with another 10,000. Gaikai now has people hitting 15 of its 24 data centers and so far, so good.

"No issues have been reported that we can't fix this month, and so we will continue to send out invite blasts in waves of 10,000 until all issues are fixed," Perry wrote.

Gamers are being introduced to Gaikai by way of Second Life [http://masseffect.bioware.com/] that can be streamed through Gaikai and Perry said at least 60 deals with publishers, retailers, media sites, electronics makers and telecom companies are in the works.

Gaikai is still taking signups and Perry said that even people who are currently beyond its range are helping out. "Everyone will be getting invited in batches and if you are too far from our servers, don't worry, you've actually helped as you've shown us where we need to install more data centers," he wrote. "We're effectively reverse-engineering the internet, letting the traffic show us where the best data center position would give access to the most people."



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[Delusibeta]

Ladies and gentlemen, the second attempt at the Cloud Revolution has begun.

I do have to admit, the way they're marketing this is very interesting. In theory, if it takes off it's going to completely annihilate the "I was demoing it" excuse for piracy: everyone's going to respond with "Click here, noob!". Multi-OS, too. Pity that EA only put up the demo version. The theory gets a thumbs up from me.

 

[Delusibeta]

WTF is it exactly?

Essentially, streaming technology that only relies on Flash, unlike, say, OnLive, which is reliant on a proprietry program and can't be licensed for use outside of it. (So, say, EA starts offering streaming versions of all your games from the EA store, they would probably use this). Seems to be aimed more for the publisher than the end user, but still.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

What is this Gaika you speak of?

Like the japanese whores but pronounced wrong?

What Delusibeta said above - the ways the technology can be used are actually really cool, given you can embed a simple applet into a website that launches a full game when you click on it; think of how much more effective reviews of games would be at selling you on buying a title if they all ended with a button that lets you see for yourself whether or not you agree with the reviewer by playing the game for an hour or whatever. Or take for instance services like Twitter - some games right now will "tweet" things you've accomplished in-game. With Gaikai integration, a game could tweet that you're playing a multi-player match of [game goes here], and anyone who follows you could click on that link and be dropped into the game with you.

There's also the terrifying specter of World of Warcraft being playable anywhere, which could lead to some people just disappearing off the face of the earth, but you take the good with the bad, heh.

 

[Delusibeta]

There's also the terrifying specter of World of Warcraft being playable anywhere, which could lead to some people just disappearing of the face of the earth, but you take the good with the bad, heh.

For Second Life addicts, that specter may already be a reality [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e5V4k-2lVM&feature=player_embedded].

And here's someone streaming Mass Effect 2's demo using Linux. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQJZsztC2kA&feature=player_embedded]

 

[maddog015]

I'll give it a shot, why not. Tried OnLive and did not like it. Let's see if this is any improvement.

 

[Tarlane]

I got into the trial of this and gave it a shot.

When I first attempted to connect I received a notice that my latency was too high and I may be out of range of their servers, which as the article mentions is obviously something they are trying to correct. A day later I attempted to connect again and everything went smoothly, so it must be fairly picky about only letting you get in if the quality is going to be up to par.

The resolution was a bit grainy compared to when I play the same title on my fairly hefty gaming rig, particularly at larger screen sizes, but I didn't have any trouble with frame rate or render speeds.

I was expecting bad things from the controls but they were quite responsive and I didn't notice any real stickiness at all, which could have been a real killer in a (relatively) action heavy title. The beta gives you an hour and a half to play and includes saves which are taken past the initial cutscenes/dialogue so if you already know the game and just want to give the service a try you can have plenty of time to do it.

I didn't see any sort of NDA in effect and after the beta closes they ask for some quick comments, how you liked the game, the service, and if you would like beta keys you can share.

All in all I was pretty pleased with my trial and I think that it looks like Gaikai will be a great service for those who want to game on older computers or laptops and if they can bring in some good titles, they will be a strong competitor for OnLive since that seems to be one thing they lack a good variety of.

One of the big complaints about PC gaming is the high cost of entry, both financially and in keeping up with what is needed to run modern games. If these services are able to deliver, there may be a renewed market.

 

[Tarlane]

Edit: Damn double post.

 

[PS2MAN]

For what it offers its great and will only improve as the global internet speed improves. Still I wish Perry would make games again instead of this.