The story
Founded by David Perry on Nov 2008.1
Gaikai was initially (pre-Sony acquisition) funded by Intel Capital, Limelight Networks, Rustic Canyon Partners, Benchmark Capital, TriplePoint Capital, NEA and Qualcomm. Its streaming service was embedded on game-related websites and microsites, social media site such as Facebook, and within specific products (such as smart mobile devices or digital TVs), as determined by the publisher. Users did not need to navigate to an online registration portal or download any software to access the games. Gaikai recommended an Internet connection of 5 Mbit/s or faster, and a 3 Mbit/s connection met the minimum system requirements. Gaikai's proprietary technology ran inside web browsers, in part, by using previously installed plug-ins such as Java or Adobe Flash, or alternately without using any plug-ins, as demonstrated at Google I/O 2012, where Gaikai showed a version of the service using the Google Native Client (NaCl). A demo video early on in the service, at GDC San Francisco 2010, showed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Spore, Mario Kart 64 and Adobe Photoshop all running in Adobe Flash player. In May 2010, Gaikai demonstrated World of Warcraft running on the iPad using its game streaming technology. Gaikai's technology officially came out of a public Beta test and launched internationally on February 27, 2011, with Dead Space 2, The Sims 3, Spore, and Mass Effect 2.
Services
Gaikai operated two business models for its cloud gaming services before the acquisition: Ad Network and Open Platform.
In the Ad Network model, at the end of the demo the customer was given the option to purchase the game or product from a local retailer, online store or direct-to-drive download service. The Ad Network included the Gaikai Affiliate Network which launched on June 2, 2011 reaching over 10 million monthly active users by late 2011. Websites which joined the network were able to stream high-end PC games as embedded advertising, and in exchange received a share of the marketing revenue generated from games streamed to consumers, who played the demos free of charge. Gaikai-enabled games had been integrated into YouTube, EA's Origin, and Ubisoft's UBIShop in late 2011. In April 2012, Gaikai launched its service embedded inside Facebook, allowing games to be streamed directly in the Facebook canvas.
Meanwhile, the Open Platform model allowed streaming full games to PCs, digital TVs, tablets and smart mobile devices. The first mobile partnership came in May 2012, streaming games to the Wikipad tablet. In June 2012, Samsung announced a cloud gaming service powered by Gaikai to stream AAA games to its high end LED Smart TVs.
From Wikipedia’s article on Gaikai, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4