re: PS4's Gaikai streaming service confirmed for early 2014 in U.S.

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Some people seem confused by how cloud gaming works. Basically, your system acts a bit like your router, taking in data from across the internet and displaying it on your TV. All the hard bits – the bits usually handled by the graphics/processing chips inside your machine – are done thousands of miles away. You really can’t tell the difference. Think about how amazed you were when you first used a decent wireless controller, and then scale that out to the distance between you house and a server farm on the other side of the country. It’s amazing technology and you don’t need superfast speeds to take advantage of it (although your allowance might take a hit).

This is where things become more impressive. Rather than your PS4 working out how to play Ps3 games, it just connects to what is effectively a PS3 and lets that do the work. No need for extra parts or strange errors. Better than that though, Sony can give you access to thousands of games without hardly any time or effort on their part. It’s as easy as uploading it - once – and then letting people get at it.

Cloud Gaming might not have hit its stride yet, but you can see why it’s the most logical way of handling backwards compatibility on the PS4. Once the service is up, they can release hundreds of games over a matter of weeks.

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