Crytek believes streaming games will be viable ... in 2013

Crytek revealed that it has considered the possibility of a streaming game service like OnLive or Gaikai before, but abandoned the idea due to technological limitations. "We had our research in 2005 on this subject but we stopped around 2007 because we had doubts about economics of scale. But that was at a time when bandwidth was more expensive," CEO Cevat Yerli told GamesIndustry.biz.

High-speed connections have yet to be cheap or reliable enough to work, in Crytek's estimation: the company determined that a streaming service may be possible sometime between 2013 and 2015. This is also the approximate period in which most consumer PCs will begin to be able to run Crysis. Yerli said that such services must rely strongly on broadband providers.

"We're not involved [with OnLive], we just allowed Crysis to be tested on it," Yerli said. Publisher EA is behind the addition of Crysis Warhead to the service.