Cloud technology might mean that anyone with strong internet can play a game instantly, without having to spend a ton on great hardware, but for the company providing the service, it means that they have to buy a huge amount on that hardware. Not only that, but the tech needs to be relatively near the player, otherwise lag makes gaming impossible. Because, of this, many were unsure just how tentative Sony’s first steps into cloud gaming would be, and whether they would limit the service to just one region.
Luckily, PSLS has uncovered (why this matters) job listings on Gaikai’s site point towards a more global release. First off, there are 4 US jobs available for a Service Reliability Engineer/Systems Administrator as well as 5 for the EU. There is also a job for a Manager, Service Reliability Engineering in the US and another one in the EU, and, under the job description, it mentions that employees will have to “build and direct a team of engineers across many time zones” as well as “Must be willing to travel to domestic and international datacenter and office locations.”
Don’t live in either the US or Europe? Well further job listings suggest that even more regions could be planned, with the responsibilities for the Director of Datacenter Operations including “Owns the deployment and day to day management of physical infrastructure related to Gaikai/SCE’s streaming service worldwide“, “maintenance and inventory of our global datacenter infrastructure”, and, most importantly “Build and manage a team of datacenter operations personnel and external third-party contractors to facilitate buildouts in North America, Europe and Asia.”
The VP of Business Development & Account Management job listing also has “additional languages (German, Japanese, Chinese or Korean preferred)” as a plus, which means that most countries in Asia could be covered. In fact, South Korea would be a perfect place to push cloud gaming, due to the nation’s renowned high internet speeds.
This all suggests a rather ambitious roll-out plan for Gaikai, and will require a huge amount of investment, on top of the $380 million Sony already spent buying the company.
Are you glad that Gaikai is probably coming to a server near you? Or do you live in Oceania, South America, Africa or somewhere else not mentioned? Let us know in the comments below.
Essential Reading:
Sony’s Gaikai is Coming to Android, iOS “and Other Mobile Devices”
Gaikai Teases Uncharted, God of War, Killzone and More on Their Cloud Platform
