Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Sony trademarks PS Cloud name

Readying game-streaming for PS3/PSP?

Sony has registered a trademark for PS Cloud, fuelling rumours the company is developing its own OnLive-like game streaming service.

The filing, spotted by Kotaku, protects PS Cloud from "entertainment services, namely, providing an online videogame that users may access through the internet".

Sony already uses this technology to allow the PSP to remotely control games and films running on PS3. A fuller implementation would make sense. The technical difficulties, however, remain massive, as Richard Leadbetter pointed out while dissecting OnLive.

Of course, the cloud name may also point to a global account service that stores saved games and account settings so they can be accessed from any PS3, similar to SteamCloud.

Note, too, that many trademarked products never get made and are simply registered 'just in case'.