On Monday, Sony Computer Entertainment bought cloud-based game streaming company Gaikai for around $380 million. Should Apple look into developing or purchasing a game streaming service to stream games to its line of iOS devices? Killian Bell of Cult of Mac thinks so, and tells us why.
The same service could provide an even bigger advantage to Apple. In fact, there are a number of reasons why the Cupertino company should use its ever-increasing cash pile to make Mac and iOS gaming even greater.
Bell says there are 4 reasons why Apple should offer a games streaming service, they are:
Devices
Apple already has the devices in place. The iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and even the Apple TV are perfect for taking advantage of cloud-based gaming. The iOS devices have already shown that they are great gaming devices, and they’re already stealing market share from dedicated gaming devices such the Nintendo 3DS, and the various iterations of the Playstation Portable.
If anyone has doubts about the viability of gaming on iOS devices, just load Angry Birds or Infinity Blade and let them play it for awhile.
The Cloud
Bell points out that Apple is already pushing us to “live in the cloud”. As they strive to make smaller, thinner, lighter devices, one of the things to take a big hit will probably be storage space. Enter iCloud. Give your data, songs, and videos to Apple to store, access them anywhere. Games can take up a monster amount of space. FIFA 12 and infinity Blade II take up over 1 GB of space. If you have an 8 GB iPhone 4, a couple of games like these, and things are already starting to get a little tight, storage-wise.
Move these to the cloud, stream them on demand, problem solved.
Another advantage? No more lengthy update downloads. The games will always be the latest version, ready to stream to our devices.
There will be times you won’t have access to the internet via speedy broadband, but you can still have the option to store the games on your device, if you wish.
Syncing
If you’re streaming your games, it wouldn’t matter which device you’re playing them on, fire up your iPad and you’ll start playing right where you left off an hour ago on your iPhone. Seamless baby!
Pricing
Apple’s pricing structure per game wouldn’t need to change, we’d pay the same amount we do now, we’d just decide whther to store them locally or in the cloud.
There would be an annual fee, like the $25 we pay now for iTunes Match. For the cloud-based storage.
What’s Your Opinion?
I believe Bell makes a strong argument for a game streaming service from Apple, what do you think? Let us know in the comments section below!