Engadget gets its hands on Gaikai closed beta

Our geekier, yet still kind of cute in her own way sister site Engadget recently took Dave Perry-fronted streaming service Gaikai for a spin, and posted the results for all to see. Though the performance sounds about comparable to OnLive, the greatest strength of Perry's competing service is that it's not, in fact, attempting to compete.

Gaikai is primarily a way to sample games before purchasing them on a retail console or PC, so the inherent limitations aren't as large of hurdles as they are on OnLive, which aims to replace the home console. Or, at least, that's how Perry's pitching it. Get more of his take (and more Engadget reaction to the Gaikai experience) right here.

Reader Comments (11)

If it saves me the hdd space and time of having to download a regular demo, I'm all for it. Especially for games that don't normally put out demos. (I'm looking at you, Fallout.)

So...Gaikai is essentially a platform for advertisement laced demos? I don't understand how they plan to make money doing that, unless you can eventually play the entire game (with advertisements) or if they get a cut of any sales generated.

I guess this is sort of an alright thing, if it means that games that formerly didn't have demos will now have them, but.....ehhh...

@BananaBoat

I assume they get there money from publishers

@Faenix - I know, but they must have overhead costs (servers, bandwidth, etc) and advertising alone can't be that lucrative. What is the incentive of a publisher to use Gaikai over just jamming advertisements into a demo and releasing it on steam/xbox live/PSN/etc? I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around their business model compared to OnLive (and I've never thought their business model was very sound anyway).

/Business Major Rant (maybe not a great business major if I can't figure this out)

Wow, that Eee pic really makes the point.

You think your sister is cute Joystiq? That's sorta creepy.

So... is she single?

I imagine this would be popular among publishers because they wouldn't have to spend the money to make demos anymore. They could just put their game on Gaikai and limit the time to 30 minutes or something. It would require a lot less effort, time, and money than packaging together a demo.

If Apple had a competing service, you can be guaranteed this thing would have gotten a negative review.

Seriously, I have never seen a non-Apple branded site with more Apple bias before.

If a phone comes up for review, it will get low marks because it's "Not Apple."

If an MP3 player comes up for review, it will get low marks because it's "Not an iPod."

And when an Apple product comes out, 30 posts in one day about the most inane shit. "The Apple iShit comes in 24 different colors!", "The Apple iShit weighs 32 grams less than the previous iShit!"

Some other major product comes out, that competes with Apple? You will be lucky to get one post.

They have even photoshopped pictures to make Apple product features look better than competitors. And this isn't hearsay, proof exists out there. Or they complain about non-existant bullshit. "This Android logo is off center!" (when it's clearly not.)

I wouldn't trust them for any review, even something like this that has nothing to do with Apple or it's competitors.

@Drakkenfyre

Eh, apples are one of the most popular companies (know a guy on forums... he seems eat, and sleep apple. All he talks about, its annoying too, xD

But Engadget takes it to another level.

Before the iPad was announced, they had 32 posts in two days about it. It had been so bad prior, and up to then, that even some Apple fans in their comments section said it was enuf. Some of their editors openly trolled in the comments, cursing at some users, and banning others. They trashed every single phone that wasn't an Apple product. So bad that, again, even some Apple uers told them they should stop that shit. It got to the point where every story had people complaining about their bias, and in response, they threw a fit, closed the comment section down for the entire site, and banned a shitload of people. They didn't open up again for a few weeks, and when they did, their editors could no longer be voted down, and they banned people at the drop of a hat.

And they also edited photos to make Apple products look better. They take a picture with the iPhone, they fiddle with the color balance, and more, then stick it next to another phone's pic, and say it's superior.

When you review something, and say "This is a feature the iPhone doesn't have, and this feature works better than the one on the iPhone, but it still sucks anyway because it's not an iPhone, and it's not by Apple", you know your reviews suck.

I know this comment has nothing to do with video games, but when it comes to Engadget, they need to get all the shit they can. Don't trust any review they do, no matter what it's about.

I got into both betas, and they're both great. Onlive didn't support the mouse I have tho, so I had to use the trackpad, which I don't like for first person games

Engadget gets its hands on Gaikai closed beta

Reader Comments (11)

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:15PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:19PM BananaBoat said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:52PM Faenix said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 11:21PM BananaBoat said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:21PM Unvrfd said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:29PM jchan said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:31PM einhanderkiller said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:40PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 6:54PM Faenix said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 8:56PM Drakkenfyre said

Posted: Dec 2nd 2010 7:20PM keroro said

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