Rumor: Microsoft’s Cloud based streaming service is called “Rio”

[Osc89]

Machiavellian said:

Osc89 said:

I'm just going by the leaked document, which showed they were aiming for 2015. The only reason Sony is ahead is because they needed to use the technology to get Remote Play working from launch, so it was higher priority.

I imagine both will charge for a separate subscription. It is looking like both services will go multiplatform anyway, so they can't really tie it to the existing ones.

Going multiplatform would be very interesting if both service decide to go that route.  I believe Sony would have an advantage there as they have a bigger catalog of games to put on the service.  I still believe Sony would have to go a lot smaller first in order to not have the service get overloaded with customers than not be able to provide enough quality to keep them.  MS would be best to leverage Azure as much as possible and provide the service to as many users as they can to get a jump on Sony.  It would be interesting if both service came out at the same time.

Well we can't know for sure, but it does look their original plan was for 2015. MS seem like they are going for the AR "Kinect glasses" next year instead, and putting the game streaming on the back-burner.

If you haven't seen it, definitely check this out http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.379349-Xbox-720-leaked-document. They may have switched it around after the leak, but they kept the 2013 strategy so maybe they are locked in by now. Given the R&D that must have gone into the glasses, they would probably want to launch them as quickly as possible anyway, rather than delay just to match Sony with a streaming service.

As for Sony starting small, it pretty much looks like that's what they are going for making Gaikai US only at first. That is the most competitive region for them anyway, so it makes sense.