{"id":24790,"date":"2026-09-09T14:37:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/09\/streaming-from-the-cloud-was-meant-to-change-games-forever-what-happened\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T14:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:37:19","slug":"streaming-from-the-cloud-was-meant-to-change-games-forever-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/09\/streaming-from-the-cloud-was-meant-to-change-games-forever-what-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"Streaming from the cloud was meant to change games forever \u2013 what happened?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once hailed as the future, even the likes of Google, Sony and Microsoft have struggled to make streaming games fun, fast or affordable<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In August 2009, at the very first Gamescom expo, I sat in a small meeting room in Germany and played Mario Kart and World of Warcraft on a laptop, via technology that was then completely new: cloud gaming. It was a demonstration for a yet-to-be-launched service called Gaikai that promised to let you play any game in a browser window, without a console. (Here is an ancient video<\/a> of that demonstration, featuring a very young Keza.) With a single click I could launch into any game, hosted on servers hundreds of miles away. It really did look like the future.<\/p>\n

Since then, plenty of companies have tried to be the first<\/a> to truly crack game streaming, vying to be the Netflix of games. Sony ended up buying Gaikai for $380m (\u00a3242m) in 2012; its technology now powers the streamable classic games library on PlayStation, and the PS5\u2019s advanced game streaming. OnLive, Gaikai\u2019s first competitor, launched in 2011 but shut down after less than a year, leaving Sony to acquire all its patents. Google\u2019s Stadia cloud gaming service also imploded, launching in 2019 and shutting down three years later.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nOnce hailed as the future, even the likes of Google, Sony and Microsoft have struggled to make streaming games fun, fast or affordable
\n\u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here
\nIn August 2009, at the very first Gamescom expo, I sat in a small meeting room in Germany and played Mario Kart and World of Warcraft on a laptop, via technology that was then completely new: cloud gaming. It was a demonstration for a yet-to-be-launched service called Gaikai that promised to let you play any game in a browser window, without a console. (Here is an ancient video of that demonstration, featuring a very young Keza.) With a single click I could launch into any game, hosted on servers hundreds of miles away. It really did look like the future.
\nSince then, plenty of companies have tried to be the first to truly crack game streaming, vying to be the Netflix of games. Sony ended up buying Gaikai for $380m (\u00a3242m) in 2012; its technology now powers the streamable classic games library on PlayStation, and the PS5\u2019s advanced game streaming. OnLive, Gaikai\u2019s first competitor, launched in 2011 but shut down after less than a year, leaving Sony to acquire all its patents. Google\u2019s Stadia cloud gaming service also imploded, launching in 2019 and shutting down three years later. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once hailed as the future, even the likes of Google, Sony and Microsoft have struggled to make streaming games fun, fast or affordable \u2022 Don\u2019t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here In August 2009, at the very first Gamescom expo, I sat in a small meeting room in Germany and played …<\/p>\n

Streaming from the cloud was meant to change games forever \u2013 what happened?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":24791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24790"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}