GameStop's console streaming service will require retail game purchase

We don't know much about GameStop's mysterious plans to stream console games using the tech it acquired in the purchase of Spawn Labs, but the gaming retailer offered a few details to GamesIndustry.biz that help elucidate things. "So we're not looking at a service where you can just play games in the cloud," GameStop senior veep Mike Mauler told GI.biz, "you would buy the game through our loyalty programme and through a partnership with the publishers we would give them an opportunity to possibly – this is still something we're working out – to be able to play their game when they're not at home with their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3."

This would, of course, be offered as a premium service for GameStop's customers. "It would be an additional service that you would be able to purchase as you buy a copy of the game to play on your Xbox," Mauler explained, adding that the service "doesn't require any work" from publishers to make the games compatible.

While there are still plenty of unanswered questions (how would save games work if you're continuing a console game on your iPad in a hotel?) the premise is certainly ambitious. But would we pay extra money for the privilege of playing a game we already own away from home? It would have to be a really enticing price point. Or maybe if they kept bugging us at checkout.