Sony prepares ‘aggressive’ cloud gaming push

Sony prepares ‘aggressive’ cloud gaming push

It seeks to expand its reach beyond PlayStation consoles by tapping into mobile gaming trends.

Sony is reportedly developing the ability to transmit games from a user’s home PlayStation to a mobile device.
TOKYO:
Sony Group Corp is gearing up for a push into cloud gaming in the coming months as it works to expand its reach beyond consoles.

Cloud computing will be fundamental to tapping into mobile gaming trends, Sony Interactive Entertainment President Jim Ryan said at an investor relations event Wednesday. The company is building on its acquisition of Bungie Inc last year, which it touted as an accelerant for its efforts to offer more live services on PlayStation consoles and beyond.

Sony has “some fairly interesting and quite aggressive plans to accelerate our initiatives in the space of the cloud”, Ryan said, without elaborating further.

A year earlier, Sony articulated a strategy for carving out a bigger share of mobile and PC gaming with the help of live services.

Among those, cloud-based gaming, which involves streaming from data centres to devices such as smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs, remains a tiny segment of the video games market.

The lion’s share is controlled by gaming consoles made by Sony and rival Microsoft Corp. Another scenario involves streaming a game from a PlayStation in the user’s home to their mobile device, which may be the thing that Sony is focusing on.

Some executives at the big console companies have long argued that cloud games could eventually cannibalise the console market by increasing access to top-tier games on less sophisticated and mobile hardware.

Standalone cloud gaming services have so far failed to go mainstream, with notable failures like OnLive and Alphabet Inc’s Stadia, but Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service is popular and growing.

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