Is that World of Warcraft (WoW) running on your iPad? Why, yes, yes, it is!
How, you ask?
Well, it’s all in the Cloud – the Gaikai Cloud – of course!
“Gaikai proper [currently in beta] is a Cloud-based browser-binded streaming service. The goal is to move consumers away from installs and having to upgrade their computers with parts,” explained Brad Nicholson of TouchArcade.
“Gaikai’s servers hosts the game and all of its files and streams them into browsers. This allows users to get the full game experience without hassle.”
According to Gaikai co-founder David Perry, the platform is capable of streaming WoW to the iPad at a “crisp” 1024×768.
“All iPad inputs are streamed through a translation system to the server, so we can re-map anything to anything in real-time. We hide a virtual keyboard off to the side, so you can type as well (like to login). It’s just a teaser as the iPad just arrived, once they are done with the video optimization we will show it off,” Perry told Eurogamer.
“The iPad’s native video player isn’t up to scratch for dealing with streaming gameplay, and of course the fact that iPad doesn’t support Flash (as per the PC/Mac version) means that the Gaikai implementation needed to be built up from scratch, presumably via a bespoke app.”
OK, but what about Crysis?!
