OnLive is shutting down – and Sony's whipped out its cheque book. The platform holder's announced today that it's purchased 140 patents off the closing cloud gaming company, a move which it stresses has earned it a "formidable patent portfolio" in the emerging sector. It's unclear how much it paid for the potentially lucrative licenses, but it's clear that these will be folded back into PlayStation Now.
"These strategic purchases open up great opportunities for our gamers, and gives Sony a formidable patent portfolio in cloud gaming," said a chuffed Philip Rosenberg, who's a bigwig at SCEA. "It is yet another proof point that demonstrates our commitment to changing the way gamers experience the world of PlayStation."
The Japanese giant's actually been willing to invest heavily in this area for a while, as it bought Gaikai for $380 million back in 2012 to form the foundations of PlayStation Now and Remote Play. Meanwhile, despite being the original poster child for cloud gaming, OnLive has been struggling for a while, shutting down once already before being picked back up. It'll officially close its doors for what seems like the last time on 30th April, with any existing subscriptions renewed on or after 20th March getting a full refund.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 16
Ha, wow. I'd wondered what happened with OnLive. I never saw the appeal--well, I sorta did, but as a platform with nothing exclusive and dependent on online, it really didn't have a chance.
wow, Sony is really betting big on PlayStation Now...
Good luck Sony, you're gonna need it.
And that is the downside to the digital age. If anyone bought anything from OnLive they will lose it now.
Picking up patents is a low risk, high reward move. Now they can either charge competition a usage fee, or in some cases disallow some actions (utility patents). I never cared for the patent system, seemed a little too unfair to the open market. But from a business standpoint, this was a solid move by Sony.
@Tasuki agreed. Personally what keeps me from going all digital is not having a guarantee. For instance, if Xbox shutters, I would like in the mail a hard copy of every piece of digital media I have purchased. Or In the least, the ability to download drm free copies before they shutter.
@BigDaddyT0101 Lol like that will happen. Funny thing is when I use this kind of scenerio like what his happening to OnLive to explain my reluctance to go digital they always counter with well CDS can get scratched or lost. Funny thing though I still have NES cartridges and PS ONE discs that work fine.
@whywai88 They're playing the long game. The next gen after this one will most likely be all digital/cloud purchases. I think Now costs too much for what it is so I've passed not that so far, but I only buy digital games at this point.
Lag killed it off not to mention a crazy CEO with an agenda against Gaikai, who basically bankrupted the company.
I'll be 100% digital from now on since my daughter now has a ps4 we share our ps4's and seeing as you can only share digital games I must be 100% digital now. I mean why would I buy 2 physical copy's of say ESO when I can purchase one copy digitaly and use it on both consoles, why would I buy 2 physical copy's? Saved myself £60 there happy days. Digital Future!
@Tasuki
Which is exactly why I don't want this industry to go all digital. It's inevitable and change happens, so whatever. It's still disappointing.
Most of the times these patents arent exactly for the benefit of one's service but to stop another party yo get them.
Maybe we will see improvements, but i thinks this is just like when Google bought Motorola or Facebook buying Instagram (To prevent twitter from doing so) ... Just for the sake of no one else could use then
Thanks for the Gaika mention in the article, it was going to drive me crazy trying to remember that name as the whole article gave me a feeling of deja vu
@Gamer83 which is why when that happens I will stop buying current gen consoles. Heck I have plenty of older consoles to b play.
@xMEADx you can certainly share physical games. Nothing prevents your daughter from putting a physical disc that you bought, in her PS4. There is only one edge case where this is not viable and thats if you both wanted to play the same game at the same time on different consoles. In your specific example, its an online only game, so buying it physically or digitally makes no real difference, so going digital with that is a pretty safe bet.
@glassmusic
Companies like Sony, EA have already given there opinions about consoles being digital only. They even think a digital only console is a long time off, for a lot a different reasons. People when nuts with the XboxOne being an always online console, until Microsoft changed a lot of there policies, which should tell us companies like these listen to there customers a lot more then we think, within reason that is.
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