The cloud is taking gaming away from the videogame console, and putting the ability to play games right on the TV. Samsung has partnered with cloud gaming provider Gaikai to make games available on Samsung LED 7000 series Smart TVs. The announcement was made earlier this week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3, in Los Angeles.
Samsung Cloud Gaming will appear on the Smart TV menu alongside other content providers such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube and other video services. Samsung's partner in cloud games, Gaikai, identified a lack of games on content channels, and built the company around filling that need.
"Samsung Cloud Gaming will greatly expand the reach of the best games our industry can provide, then make them just as accessible as movies, TV shows and music," said Dave Perry, CEO of Gaikai, in a company statement.
For Samsung, Gaikai will provide a number of family-friendly and AAA video game titles. The carousel of games during the E3 demo included Darkside, Limbo, BulletStorm and Street Fighter 4. When selected, a game loads quickly from one of Gaikai's 24 data servers, then plays just like any console game.
Samsung isn't the only TV manufacturer with its head in the clouds. Competing cloud gaming publisher OnLive announced a similar deal to put games on LG's line of Smart TVs. In most cases the decision to go with GaiKai or OnLive will depend on the TV, though some consumers will likely buy Samsun's 7000 series because they want the Samsung Cloud Gaming channel, which is provided through Gaikai.
Gaikai said it's ahead of schedule, and will launch full games on its service within the next 30 days. However, Samsung says it will soon be accepting sign-ups for the Beta test for the cloud gaming service on Smart TVs in the United States market. Once available, the icon on the Smart TV menu will come on, and TV owners can sign up for the service. Gaikai will ship a Logitech 710 controller to those who sign up for the service.
In addition to providing games on the PC and Samsung Smart TVs, Gaikai also showed its Wikipad solution where owners of the Android 4.0, 3D tablet have access to cloud-based games. The demo showed World of Warcraft playing on the Wikipad at 60 frames per second.
Samsung and Gaikai did not give immediate details on the cost for subscription or individual games, though it's likely a handful of games will be free to play or free on a trial basis.
