Gaikai Targeting 100 Million Users by 2012
Gaikai CEO David Perry wants to see 100 million gamers playing Gaikai-hosted titles by 2012.
Gaikai CEO David Perry recently stated that his cloud gaming service should reach 100 million users by 2012, and that "technically" it has already surpassed 10 million customers.
Perry's outfit is different than OnLive in that it's not a closed community accessed via a small app or dedicated console. Instead, Gaikai is a technology that streams high-quality gaming to any website -- including Facebook -- via an Internet browser. Eventually gamers will have the ability to purchase PC games from an online retailer and stream them to any Internet-connected device, including smartphones.
"We need to get above the reach of any single game entity in the industry as quickly as we can," he told GamesIndustry in an interview. "If you were to put a game on a single website, that's not going to have anything like the reach that we'll be able to have."
Perry said that Gaikai is going to achieve its 100 million user base in three different ways: by going through retailer websites which will be detailed in announcements later on (GameStop?), by going through affiliate sites, and in the way Gaikai will handle those affiliates.
"The ability to pull a lever and have a million people play your game is something that's crazy to even think about today," he said. "That's a very difficult problem, yet with cloud gaming that will be really quite straightforward. A normal way of thinking will be, 'I want another million and another million.'"
He added that the best way to get gamers to try a product is by way of demos. The drawback, according to Perry, is that game trials "are being made so difficult." He's right in one aspect: many games simply can't be broken down into a small, playable fragment. OnLive, on the other hand, has bypassed this limitation by offering timed gameplay in replace of demos. This way, players can test drive titles like Borderlands before dropping a huge chunk of change. Currently it's unknown whether Gaikai will offer the same type of timed "trial."
Right now Gaikai offers nine demos that can be played in a browser including Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Dead Space 2, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 2 and a few others. At one point, Walmart's Gamecenter featured playable demos of Dead Space 2 and Mass Effect 2, but as of this writing they're not listed on the site. This may be due to a connection error, or possibly because playing a high-resolution demo could be misleading to consumers with mid-range to low-end hardware specs.
To test-drive a streaming demo hosted by Gaikai, head here.
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Goals are too high tbh.
Crazy CEO does not accept reality.
Valve has won, you must join with them....
"The ability to pull a lever and have a million people play your game is something that's crazy to even think about today,"
and with another pull, have millions of people not be able to play because its streamed.
I find it a bit suspicious that he didn't specify when in 2012 he hopes to meet this lofty goal. You could interpret his words to mean that there'll be 100 million users January 1.
I also am skeptical about his use of of the word Technically. That's usually code for "if we fudge the numbers, we can legally claim it, but it's not really indicative of what we're hoping for."
this is the same guy that used to head Shiny. you know, the studio that shipped MDK, a great game, but refused to post bugfixes for it after "the original team left". then for years talked a lot about Messiah, and it was crap, i bought it and never went past the very first level. i still have it, i was unable to sell it 2nd hand, no shop would buy it. then MDK2 came out, it wasn't by Shiny anymore, but just licensing the ip must have had similar consequences, because MDK2 had a specific gamestopping bug when you played as the professor, and there was never a patch for it. you had to call the US helpline (horrendously expensive) to be told what to type at the console to move past that point (after several days of trying and failing). what i am saying is stay away from anything this guy and the studios he works for is involved in, you'll be better off for it.
gaikai. I often read it as gayguy. wtf?
"You must accept the Gaikai certificate before you can play this game. Please restart your browser, then try again."
What certificate ?
Nevermind. I was using icedtea-web and openjdk6 (Linux) and after uninstalling those and installing Oracle's "jre" it now says: "This demo may not be available in your area yet, or Internet traffic may be too high to support a great gameplay experience at this time. Please try again later."
Yeah, thanks for the frustration. Can't you use HTML5 or something? Jesus.
In their fucking dreams. No way they could produce that.
Alright. Why is it that when Gaikai gets some sort of recognition, they ALWAYS compare it to OnLive? If you guys want to start out on your own.
By the way, that 10 million mark "users" is really crap. It's essentially still in beta, considering you cannot register any more, nor can you even log in unless you were a beta member. Can't see how they have "10 million users", when most of them aren't even activated since you cannot even log in anymore.
On another note, claiming that you'll get 100 million users by the end of 2012 is bullshit. Stop jerking around Perry and do something that's mind blowing, or else you'll just fall victim to OnLive.
I dont know... it this works, i mean.... you dont need a pc anymore... well. techniclly.
But guys, its still crazy. I think it actually may work....
Really don't think this is a successful business concept..
1.) Most people in the U.S have "broadband" a.k.a about 600 kilobytes down-speed average. Maybe if "broadband" was considered 100 mbps standard, this would be doable.
2.) Most gaming is competitive by nature, so again, who wants another computer acting as a proxy to slow down connections and stream a game.
3.) What the hell were you thinking? Internet Connections and Mainstream Hardware wont be there for a while.. and even if they were.. i would rather have native performance.