Sony Buys Gaikai for $380 Million

Strange things are afoot over at cloud-streaming company Gaikai. This morning, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced that it’s buying the company for $380 million, two weeks after rumors broke that Gaikai was seeking a $500 million buyout. Even stranger are the rumors that swirled around the industry prior to E3, in which the announcement of a Gaikai/Sony partnership was said to be forthcoming, and then was subsequently debunked by Gaikai’s co-founder himself.

Today’s announcement, however, seems to have proved all of that to be true—just later. Apparently the new partnership will enable Sony to “establish a new cloud service,” though the details of that service haven’t yet been spelled out.

The word from Sony CEO Andrew House in the press release:

“By combining Gaikai’s resources including its technological strength and engineering talent with SCE’s extensive game platform knowledge and experience, SCE will provide users with unparalleled cloud entertainment experiences. SCE will deliver a world-class cloud-streaming service that allows users to instantly enjoy a broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of internet-connected devices.”

So what will happen now? Well, when the initial rumors of the partnership broke in early June, it was said that Gaikai would provide streaming services of older PS1 and PS2 games onto PlayStation 3 console and maybe the PlayStation Vita handheld.

This whole thing has been kind of weird, right? First they’re partnering, then they’re not, then they want to be bought, then they’re partnering. It seems likely that Sony and Gaikai have been negotiating for a while now. Talks probably went up and down (as they do), and just as it looked like Gaikai might get a better deal, the two finally reached common ground. But before E3, I’m sure the whole situation was still on shaky ground, hence the “debunking.” Now that debunking has, in turn, been debunked.

Also, does that make it “bunked”? Or “dedebunked”?

Also-also, I like to say the word “debunked.”