Gamefly will disappear from LG, Philips, and Samsung Smart TVs as the company is shutting down its game streaming service later this month, according to a report by Variety. Electronic Arts has acquired the technology.
Another one bites the dust
It would appear that cloud gaming has yet to convince gamers. Over the last few years, we have seen OnLive, Gaikai, and others come and go. You can now add Gamefly to the list.
The idea of cloud gaming is that you stream your games over the internet – just like Netflix. The games are rendered on powerful hardware on a remote server and sent as a compressed video stream over the internet directly to your TV, media player or handheld device, bypassing the game console. You just need a game controller.
Gamefly was available on media boxes such as Amazon FireTV as well as Smart TVs from the likes of LG, Philips, and Samsung. The app will cease to work on August 31, according to a letter that the company has sent to subscribers.
Big companies looking to cloud gaming
The technology behind Gamefly’s game streaming has been acquired by Electronic Arts (EA). It powers EA’s new game streaming service Origin Access Premier that launched earlier this week for $15 per month with access to all new EA games five days before they launch. The decision to shut down Gamefly was taken before EA acquired the technology, sources tell Variety.
Despite Gamefly’s troubles, EA believes that it can use the technology to get gamers hooked on a subscription model, and EA is not alone. Sony operates a similar game streaming service with PlayStation Now but it is still limited to select regions. Microsoft has announced that it is planning to launch a game streaming service sometime in the future, and the company may even be working on a streaming-only Xbox.
Game streaming as a concept continues to capture the imagination of large and small companies as a way to bring AAA-quality games to more screens. However, it will evidently take more to get gamers onboard.
- Source: Variety
