Sony’s acquisition last year of cloud-gaming company Gaikai may be reflected in a big way in the upcoming PlayStation 4. The Wall Street Journal is citing inside sources in reporting that Sony’s new gaming console, expected to debut Wednesday at an event in Manhattan, will let people play games streamed in real time over the Internet. The report says the streams will involve games designed for the outgoing console, the PlayStation 3. That could be an effort to deal with backward compatibility: last month the Journal reported that for the PS4, Sony would “likely” go with chips from Advanced Micro Devices, rather than the Sony-IBM-Toshiba-developed Cell chip that’s in the PS3 — a move that could cause compatibility issues with current games. The new report from the WSJ says the PS4 will be able to accommodate new games stored on optical discs. It’s not clear if new games would be streamed as well.
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.