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Hawken to be playable via Gaikai prior to official release
Hawken keeps surprising us. First, we were surprised that the really great-looking mech shooter is being made by an indie studio, then it surprised us to learn that it would be free-to-play. And here's another surprise: Dave Perry's cloud gaming system Gaikai has signed a deal to let players see Hawken running through the service in advance of the planned December 12 release date.Gaikai allows nearly any game to be streamed directly from its servers to any browser, which means that the first impression of the graphics-intensive Hawken will be playable anywhere Gaikai will run (including on some tablets, and computers of all shapes and sizes). This deal makes a lot of sense from both sides: Hawken needs a large audience to get its free-to-play engine running, and Gaikai could use a big title to connect users to its servers. The Gaikai demo will be on playhawken.com and a few other sites, so eyes open until then.
Gaikai: Delivering instant MMOs to your browser
Imagine that you're reading up on an MMO on a site such as Massively (far-fetched, but stay with us on this). The words intrigue you and you think it might be worth checking out. You make a mental note to do so in the future -- to head over to the game's site, see if there's a trial, download it, set up an account, and give it a whirl -- but time gets away from you and none of that actually happens. Now imagine that right after you read that article there was a single button or link. Clicking on it, a Java window opens up on top of your screen and tells you that you're now playing a trial of the game. There's no wait, no download, no lengthy form to fill out -- just click and play, right away. You go from interested to inside the game within mere seconds, your computer specs (mostly) aren't an issue, and your curiosity is immediately sated. This isn't a far-fetched dream but the here-and-now reality. This is cloud-streaming MMOs brought to you by Gaikai. And it just might be the future of MMOs as we know it.
Gaikai delivering FIFA 12 demo through YouTube (Or: The future cometh!)
Remember when OnLive first debuted, and we were violently pulled from our provincial timescape and thrust into a future which, while notably devoid of flying cars and jetpacks, did have streaming video games? Well, hold onto your butts because the internet done did it again. Streaming service Gaikai has always had a different business model than OnLive; instead of a direct-to-consumer platform, Gaikai wants to get you into a demo as effortlessly as possible. If you like what you play, the "Order Now" button is happy to connect you to a retailer. As a part of that mandate, Gaikai founder Dave Perry was "excited!" to announce that "Gaikai is the first ever to power 3D Games (FIFA 12) on YouTube." That would be the same YouTube that streams a bajillion videos of whatever to people every day. If you follow this link and click on the "PLAY THE DEMO" banner above the video, you can see what all the fuss is about for yourself. When you're done, take a few minutes to remind yourself it's still 2011, and you weren't controlling the game with a bioport installed on your spine. The future is still a long ways out.
What's in a Name: Gaikai
David Perry, Co-Founder and CEO of Gaikai, sat down with us during last week's Game Developers Conference: Online in Austin, TX. Over the howl of the expo floor's contemporary rock soundtrack, David let us in on Gaikai's mysterious branding: "Basically one of our founders, his name is Rui Pereira, he came up with this name 'Gaikai,' and I said, 'Oh my God, no one will ever be able to pronounce that, no one will ever be able to spell that, this is a bad idea.' And of course, there's all the following conversations, what about all the other strange words that are out there: The Googles, and the Kodaks, and the, you know, the Xeroxes? "There's all these strange things that are out there, so what's wrong with having a strange name? I then took a marketing class in Texas, and they explained the idea of 'mystique marketing;' it's actually cool to have a hard-to-say name, because it means if you know how to pronounce it, then you're in the club. "So any time you hear Gaikai pronounced wrong, you can go 'Hrm, this guy doesn't know what it means, or how to say it even.' That's mystique marketing, so I thought, 'Huh, maybe we give this a try.' "It turns that the actual word is a Japanese word, and it means 'a large open space,' like out on the open ocean, and if you look around on the open ocean, you can go in any direction. And that's what we believe cloud gaming enables." Gaikai is a technology company that provides streaming game middleware to third-party corporations such as Walmart. Like this feature? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name Archives.
Engadget gets its hands on Gaikai closed beta
Our geekier, yet still kind of cute in her own way sister site Engadget recently took Dave Perry-fronted streaming service Gaikai for a spin, and posted the results for all to see. Though the performance sounds about comparable to OnLive, the greatest strength of Perry's competing service is that it's not, in fact, attempting to compete. Gaikai is primarily a way to sample games before purchasing them on a retail console or PC, so the inherent limitations aren't as large of hurdles as they are on OnLive, which aims to replace the home console. Or, at least, that's how Perry's pitching it. Get more of his take (and more Engadget reaction to the Gaikai experience) right here.
Gaikai game streaming service on target to launch in December, with all 'major publishers' signed on
The OnLive gaming service may be free now, but that doesn't mean that others aren't gunning for its members. Similarly fee-free competitor Gaikai was announced back in July and was initially said to be launching in September. However, the plan apparently wasn't to launch in September, rather to be done in September, which Dave Perry is insisting they are. The company is now just waiting to finalize some publishing deals before sending out invites to members in 60 days. Those won't be a sort of public beta like OnLive went through, with Perry saying "There will be no 'you're in a beta.' It'll just be 'go ahead and play.'" EA is still the only big fish the company has hooked thus far, but Gaikai officers expect to have "all the major games publishers" onboard by the end of the year. Say what you like, you can't knock their optimism.
Playdom kills off almost all Acclaim games
In a move that no adoption agency would ever endorse, Playdom has basically killed off Acclaim just a few months after acquiring it, as Gamasutra reports. Acclaim's site says that all of its online games have been shut down as of August 26 and unused "Acclaim Coins" are being refunded. A couple of games, Kogamu and RockFREE, will continue to live on under the Playdom banner. Playdom was bought a month ago by Disney which apparently had little interest in continuing to support Acclaim titles like 9Dragons. Though we can't claim to be big fans of any of their MMOs -- and can't really say we know anyone who fits that description -- it does seem kind of a jarring way to leave consumers.
Dave Perry on the innovation of Gaikai
All of the questions about Gaikai and OnLive have revolved around whether the streaming technology actually works. Can a company actually process your games on a remote server, and then stream them to you in a playable format? For Gaikai's CEO Dave Perry, there's no question: It works. "Yeah. Yeah," he says. "Absolutely. No problem at all." The question that Gaikai is trying to answer, then, isn't about whether the cloud works, but how. OnLive has launched with a subscription model, but Perry's doing it differently. Rather than build a service for customers, he wants Gaikai to serve as a sort of distributor -- a go-between for game publishers (like EA and Activision), online content creators (like Joystiq), and game players. Gaikai's "secret sauce" isn't in the streaming technology itself, but in the business model that makes it possible and profitable for everyone. Perry explained his plan to us in detail at the company's headquarters in Southern California last week, and told us why and how Gaikai is different from all of the other streaming services out there.
Gaikai up to $15 million in capital with second round of funding
Tired of what we silly game journalists have to say about the upcoming Gaikai game streaming service and thirsting for comments from the venture's latest investment partners? We were too! Thankfully this morning's announcement that several investment groups will be adding another $10 million to the already $5 million-strong coffers at Gaikai brought with it a handful of quotes from just such folks. Rustic Canyon Partners' Nate Redmond sees "interesting new growth opportunities for the industry" in the streaming service, while Benchmark Capital's Mitch Lasky envisions the business as one "poised to take advantage of sweeping changes in how games are bought, sold, and ultimately even played brought about by the industry-wide shift to digital distribution." Unfortunately for us, however none of the investment partners seem to know when Gaikai will become usable by the general public, instead offering word of upcoming announcements about "other strategic industry investments and partnerships soon." We're thinking E3 might be a good time for that. And hey, that's pretty soon!
World of Warcraft streamed to iPad using Gaikai
Although we assuredly could've made the worrisome connection between Gaikai's game-streaming capability, the Apple iPad, and gaming's own methamphetamine, World of Warcraft, it seems the folks at Dave Perry's company are one step ahead of us. As revealed in the image seen above (accompanied by the statement, "Was walking through the office, saw this, thought you'd like to see ... soon I'll be able to play WoW with my Cornflakes!"), Perry reveals our worst fear: portable WoW. He adds, "We're really interested to see what works well with streaming and will be trying just about every genre of game, on every device possible as we explore server-side computing. This is World of Warcraft streamed from a Gaikai server over regular wifi." Previously, we've seen Perry demonstrate a handful of other games streaming over the service, but never to a handheld device. And though we doubt that it would work over the iPad's upcoming 3G data network, playing WoW over wi-fi on an iPad is an ... appealing idea. [Via Dave Perry's Twitter account]
Dave Perry details Gaikai's server plan, teases E3 announcement
Dave Perry is dreaming big with his Gaikai streaming service. He went into a little more detail on just how it will at work at today's LA Games Conference. The company is still planning to kick off its service with 300 data centers, and while he admits it will have "much more traffic than the servers can handle," Gaikai will limit early users to those closest to the centers. If you're close enough to the server to have only about 5-10 milliseconds of lag, you'll get in. If not, Perry told Joystiq, then you won't even see the embedded window -- but your request will be logged anyway. That way, he said, Gaikai will be able to track not just where people are using the service, but where they want to use it. If a bunch of users in Alaska try to play, but can't connect because they're too far away, then "we know we're losing money in Alaska," he says, and Gaikai will set up more datacenters there. Perry says Gaikai will help with security as well -- he suggested that companies might even be able to release their E3 demos to the world just during the week of the event, allowing press or the public to play them online for a limited time, with the code securely held on Gaikai's servers. It's all speculation at this point, though -- a service like that won't be ready to go by this year's E3 in June. But stay tuned anyway: Perry also promised us an announcement about Gaikai at E3. "We got some cool stuff to show off," he confirmed with a knowing nod.
Finding a new dimension for gaming at the 3D Gaming Summit
A small crowd of movie and game producers met this week at Universal City in Los Angeles for the first-ever 3D Gaming Summit, to sit down and discuss the trend of 3D imaging in gaming and film. Much of the talk at the summit was speculative -- with almost no actual consumer devices on the market and nearly none within price range of the average consumer anyway, gaming in 3D isn't much more than an idea at this point. Most of the technology companies in attendance are still working to get content producers to use their systems to create games and films rather than selling hardware directly to consumers. Still, the panels and discussions at the summit offered an interesting look at what many believe to be the eventual future of the industry. From a lunchtime interview with Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson to a Playstation Move demo (and a panel moderated by a Joystiq editor), the 3D Gaming Summit showed off a lot of guesswork, a few interesting demos, and a few big holes that will need to be filled if 3D gaming is going to ever take off.
Gaikai's Perry says OnLive pricing is a 'shot in the arm'
Though we weren't particularly thrilled to hear about game streaming service OnLive's $14.95 monthly user fee, there's at least one guy who's totally excited for it: Dave Perry, the frontman for competing service Gaikai. "We were just as surprised as everyone else when we heard the final business model," Perry told GamesIndustry.biz. "That's why it's a shot in the arm to us, because now we're just perfectly positioned." If it sounds like corporate chest-beating, that's because it totally is. But there's a nugget of truth in what Perry says; even though he neglected to discuss the OnLive Game Portal, which seems to more closely mirror his service. Haven't you been a bit less interested in OnLive since you learned you'd have to pay $15 a month for the privilege to buy and retain ownership of games?
Gaikai closed beta coming to Europe first
Cloud computing service Gaikai will be entering closed beta "later this month" in Europe, company head Dave Perry announced earlier today. Perry explains that since "all three founders are European" they've decided to "start [the] closed beta in Europe later this month," and plan on bringing the beta to North America next (you can sign up fairly quickly right here). Perhaps unsurprising, his announcement comes just one week after OnLive, that other cloud computing-based service, opened its own public beta in North America. IGN recently got its hands on Gaikai and snagged a video (that we've dropped after the break) of the service running through Windows 7 on a new MacBook. It appears to be working just as smoothly as when we last saw it, though now in the hands of an outside party. Our concern comes with the choice of games being demoed here: World of Warcraft and Mario Kart 64, not the most demanding apps we could imagine, especially when OnLive is showing off Crysis.
Dave Perry discusses canned Atari project, 'Plague'
Dave Perry will always have a place in our hearts, and so it's a bit difficult these days to write pieces on the man who created Earthworm Jim. Doing his usual job of outlandish claim-staking, the man now known mostly for his company Gaikai and its streaming game service recently spoke to Eurogamer about a canceled game of his, named Plague. "It was a little too big for Atari," he says. Allegedly, he was working with an author and intended to make a movie of the game. "It was a big deal," he added. He goes on to say that it included "nano-weapons" that would "generate objects and delete [them] in real-time." He even teases that the game idea is "nowhere near done." Unfortunately, he's a bit busy at the moment trying to get his unicorn-powered magic carpet off the ground to work on it.
Dave Perry explains Gaikai's 'bizarre genesis'
Dave Perry's idea of a streaming game service has been a long time in the making, though the fruition of that idea, Gaikai, is less than a year into actual development. According to his latest piece for Develop, the idea for an online service with high-end game (and application) streaming has been germinating for some time in his head, starting with Airline Pilots -- an arcade flight simulator from Sega. "A friend of mine told me that we needed to buy that game, so we paid for it between us, and I stored the game in my garage," Perry explains. He found himself playing the game for hours, wondering if it would be possible to "play a real flight simulator" without having to shell out "thousands upon thousands" for it. Years later, he found himself evangelizing his theories at Leipzig 2008, where he was approached by two gentlemen (Andrew Gault and Rui Pereira) working on the very technology he spoke about. From that partnership, Gaikai was born. Perry says what separates his company's product from OnLive's is that "it's a service" and as such there is no dictating where it can go -- OnLive is technology dependent. Though we've gotten a video tour of the service and plenty of talk from Mr. Perry about Gaikai so far, we've yet to get our hands on the service, and as such will remain (understandably) skeptical until we see more.
Dave Perry talks Gaikai: 'Gamestop already hate me'
Speaking at the Develop conference currently taking place in the UK, Gaikai's Dave Perry told Edge that the folks at video game retailer GameStop "already hate" him. "I've made so much money from their store [GameStop], so I can't be mean to them about that," he apologetically added, though he said he believes the industry is being pushed to digital distribution by GameStop's used game business model."I can be mean about their [GameStop's] used game policy, because they're pushing the industry to digital distribution perhaps faster than it would have gone," he responded, when asked how retail is reacting to his dark magic-powered Gaikai service. He doesn't necessarily see brick-and-mortar retail as his company's biggest hurdle though, saying, unsurprisingly, it's the smoke money. "We need to find a strategic partner who will add value ... somebody that wants to invest and can actually add something ... we want to find somebody who will really move the needle." Wait a minute -- Gaikai involves needles? Forget it!
Dave Perry wants to put a Gaikai server in every city
We might have been able to ignore Dave Perry a year ago, but after he predicted the PSP Go, we've become terrified of his considerable powers. So, when we read that he told the annual Develop Conference in Brighton, England that 100 percent of games would soon be online, we went ahead and smashed our DVD storage solution to pieces in anticipation.Perry also told Develop that he's committed to putting a server for his game streaming service Gaikai into every major city on the globe, which seems like the beginning of a plan Cobra Commander would come up with to control the planet. We are, however, giving Dave the benefit of the doubt.
Dave Perry gives first video tour of Gaikai
Between OnLive and Gaikai, we're not sure who to trust less. Both systems are clearly operating under some form of unknown dark magic, allowing the mysterious services to stream high-def gaming directly into your television and computer browser. Both services though -- luckily and necessarily -- have representatives willing to happily test our skepticism in OnLive's Steve Perlman and Gaikai's Dave Perry.The video (found after the break) has the latter demoing Gaikai, streaming games from Mario Kart 64 to Spore to EVE Online, all from his Vista-powered PC running Firefox on an 800-mile trip between the server and his home. He claims in the video to be streaming all of the games demoed from sub 1-megabit internet speeds and says that "even a NetBook" could run Gaikai with no problems. From what we can see, things are running smoothly, though unlike OnLive, we've yet to get our hands on the equipment. Perry says we'll see more at this month's Develop Conference, so for those of you itching for more Gaikai, you've got a two-week wait on your hands. Perhaps you should play some of those old, less magic-filled gaming consoles you have. [Via Edge Online]
Gaikai (the other OnLive) won't be at E3 either
The Gaikai game streaming service will not be shown at E3 2009. Never heard of it? Well, if all goes according to plan, Gaikai would become the competition to the much better publicized OnLive service. BigDownload reports it was informed by the company that its previous expectation of attending the event in LA were cut "until various patent filings are complete." It appears we'll have to wait until both services go into beta to get a better idea of how each will work. OnLive announced last week that it would not attend E3 and would have "plenty" to show throughout the rest of the year. We're definitely looking forward to testing out the server-based future of PC gaming.
