Sony Says Gaikai Acquisition Doesn’t Mean the End of Retail

by David Sanchez on July 6, 2012 @ 4:08 pm

Sony may have just recently acquired media streaming service Gaikai, but that doesn’t mean the company plans on ignoring the retail market anytime soon. In fact, Sony looks to continue delving into retail media with its next platform. Speaking to MCV, Sony UK head Fergal Gara said that the PlayStation 3 and Vita manufacturer needs retail.

“Coming down off that 2008 peak has been a steep ride for many and has involved fallout on many levels, not least of all retail,” said Gara. “We’d love to see as many of those retailers as possible maintain their interest in servicing the space because clearly down the road many of us are going to be doing our best to give another injection into the market whenever the next cycle starts.”

We’ve seen the digital market grow exponentially over the past few years, and it’s only going to continue to grow. With companies like EA announcing plans to go 100 percent digital within the next few years, there’s no denying the power and appeal of digital distribution. It’s interesting to see Sony’s interest in retail, even after its acquisition of Gaikai. Personally, I like going out and buying tangible games, so I’m all for the continued retail support.

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Comments
Adiuvo says:

If Sony is still around for a PS5 I'm sure that will be digital only. US internet companies seem to be getting better with the whole bandwidth thing if Comcast is anything to go by.

MenaceInc says:

32bit per pixel for a 1920x1080 resolution at 60fps.

3981312000b/s

3.91Gbit/s

This is an upper bound for Full HD gaming but it's likely that the standard resolution that we enjoy media will increase by the time that network speeds are anywhere near viable for the number of players we have today. Also, it doesn't take into consideration compression of video steam which while make it more doable, it's not going to perform miracles.

Trigun says:

I will never go on to all digital video streaming game consoles. The day that happens. Is the day I quit.

MenaceInc says:

Never say never.

Trigun says:

Well, it'll take hell to freeze over on many fronts to make me change my mind.

Stuff like Steam and PC gaming going digital I can handle for the most part. But video streaming? No way, fuck that in like 5 different ways.

1.The only Cable Internet provider in my area put a retarded 100GB up/down combined cap after I moved back to California in 2010. When I moved again back here last year I found out that we had a cap. Which sucks ass.

2. It reinforces the "Megacorporations" mentality that you don't own anything, that you are at the whim of them with what you can do with your purchase. Namely you can't resell anything and it cuts out the middle man. Which brings to

3. It will kill secondhand sales, and run many mom and pop gaming shops in to the ground because they won't be able to carry, or take trade ins and resell current games.

4. It will take a miracle in Video Compressing technology to get 100% perfect IQ because as it stands you can't get even perfect IQ on current video game streaming services with a 20Mbs connection. ( I am a IQ whore. Which is the same reason I am angry at my HD Cable half the time)

5.I don't have anything to hold in my hand, nothing to display on a shelf.

+ Many more reasons.

x3sphere says:

Agree 100% on this. Even if you cut out the latency, that's my biggest fear about cloud gaming if it ever were to take off. If cloud was the only option and a company died, so would their games. Preservation would be gone.

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