Rumor: Gaikai will launch in North America in Q3 2014, Europe in 2015

According to “trusted sources” of Eurogamer, Gaikai, the cloud-based gaming streaming service that Sony bought for $380 million back in July, 2012, will launch in North America in Q3 2014 . The site also claims that Europe won’t get the full service until 2015.

Eurogamer says that its sources inform that Sony has already briefed developers on Gaikai and some are being asked to take part in its early 2014 beta.

Hence, the site decided to ask  Andrew House, Sony Computer Entertainment Group CEO, about the state of Gaikai’s roll-out plans. This is what he said:

Our goal is to be able to have a new form of game distribution streamed from the server side, initially to PS4 consoles then gradually moving that out to Vita. But eventually, the endgame is to have this available on a multitude of network-connected devices, essentially delivering a console-quality gaming experience on devices which are not innately capable of doing that.

We think there’s a great opportunity to broaden the market, because you essentially remove the need to make the console purchase in order to have access to that experience. It may sound counter-intuitive, because, aren’t you replacing a business that is your bread and butter? But part of being an innovative company is being a pioneer in new forms of distribution of content, and we would like to be there first and take a leadership role.

When asked about the European launch in 2015, House added:

I really can’t be specific on the European roll-out. It’s a brand new form of delivery. We need to prove out the technology, which we feel is good at its core, but we place – as I think is quite right – a real emphasis on delivering a quality experience for consumers. And that will be dependent to a degree on what the strength of broadband connection is going to be, and what our server deployment and infrastructure looks like.

We’re hard at work on all of those fronts, but I’m not at a point right now where I can be specific about when our European fans are going to be able to enjoy that.

Stay tuned for more info.

Source | Eurogamer, VG247 & Gematsu.