Report: Next PlayStation to use Gaikai to stream PS3 games
PS4 (codenamed Orbis) will reportedly offer PS3 backwards compatibility through Gaikai streaming tech.
With Sony's next system expected to move to AMD chips and abandon the architecture that defined PS3, hopes for backwards compatibility were lost. During the transition from PS2 to PS3, Sony had to include expensive legacy components to enable playback of last-gen games. Backwards compatibility was eventually removed from redesigned models, designed to be cheaper.
Although PS4 (codenamed Orbis) will be a radically different system, it will be able to offer backwards compatibility through Gaikai streaming tech--a theory we offered after Sony's acquisition of the company last summer.
According to the Wall Street Journal (via Polygon), the streaming service will enable playback of PS3 games. According to the paper's sources, this feature should be announced alongside the new console reveal on Wednesday. "How Sony plans to charge for streamed games remains unclear," WSJ notes, pointing out the significant cost of offering game streaming services. Could PlayStation Plus come into play?
Obviously, we have a lot of questions surrounding the implementation of this streaming tech. Will players be able to stream games they already own on Blu-ray? How about PlayStation Network titles?
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replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Report: Next PlayStation to use Gaikai to stream PS3 games.
PS4 (codenamed Orbis) will reportedly offer PS3 backwards compatibility through Gaikai streaming tech.-
Interesting, but how much quality will be lost, and how much latency will be introduced?
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All the gakai demo's I've used were more than playable. I don't know what kind of h/w or emulator they would use locally to stream but if it can cut down the high internal latencies present in 30fps console games than the 20-40ms ping one has to the server might actually result in smoother gameplay overall as some titles have latencies upwards of 100ms. If one then takes into account how OLEDs will have far less input lag than current LCDs that added 30ms becomes a non-issue as the majority of HDTVs add ~30ms+ latency even while in game mode.
However, I was not attempting to answer his questions about latency as, again, I do not know what kind of emulation or h/w they'll use. In regards to visual quality it will depend on whether or not they use h264/265 or a custom codec developed specifically with streaming in mind. If they do it'd be possible to achieve visually lossless results at ~8Mbps.
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