Sony acquires iSIZE to boost its Cloud capabilities

Following Microsoft’s push into cloud gaming, Sony has started to offer its own streaming solutions – recently enabling PS+ Premium subscribers to stream PlayStation 5 games. In order to help bolster their streaming efforts, Sony has now acquired video specialist iSIZE.

Making the announcement on their blog, Ueli Gallizzi, the SVP of Future Technology Group at SIE said “We are thrilled to announce that Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (‘SIE’) has entered into an agreement to acquire iSIZE, a UK-based company specializing in deep learning for video delivery.”

Describing the company’s role, Gallizzi continued, “iSIZE builds AI-powered solutions to deliver bitrate savings and quality improvements for the media and entertainment industry,” adding that “The acquisition provides SIE with significant expertise in applying machine learning to video processing, which will benefit a range of our R&D efforts as well as our video and streaming services.”

For the longest time, the only way to stream modern PlayStation games was to do so through the console itself, unlike Microsoft which uses dedicated servers to offer streaming even if you do not own an Xbox in any capacity. 

While many would likely still prefer to game using dedicated hardware with no streaming involved, it is clear that streaming will be adopted more and more over time, especially as the technology itself improves. As such, it makes sense for Sony to invest in this area of the market – even if consoles remain the core of PlayStation.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of game streaming? Should Sony be investing in the technology? Do you think streaming will ever directly compete with localised hardware? Let us know your thoughts down below.

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