14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Electronic Arts and communications giant Comcast are announcing that they are partnering up in order to launch a new streaming service for video games for all those who are already users of the Xfinity service.
No home consoles or PCs are required, and those who opt in will be able to use a classic television set and a smartphone or modern tablet to play.
The included video games are: FIFA 13, PGA Tour Golf, Monopoly, NBA Jam on Fire Edition, Peggle Nights, Plants versus Zombies, World of Goo, World Whomp Underground, and more will probably be offered in the coming weeks.
These are older titles, but some of them offer very good entertainment opportunities in a living room scenario.
Streaming the video games will use the data that Xfinity subscribers have included in their plan.
Brian Witkowski, who works on the streaming concept, states, "There’s no new hardware required, there’s no downloads either on the set-top box or on the mobile device, it’s instantaneous, as minimal steps to log in as possible, and there’s no physical controllers."
Comcast and Electronic Arts are offering a beta initially in order to test the infrastructure and are welcoming feedback from the community.
It seems that titles from other publishers will be added in the future to Xfinity, although no other names have been mentioned.
Streaming is also becoming important on home consoles
A variety of companies are working on streaming solutions on the PC, the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One.
The concept is attractive because it allows companies to offer their titles without asking gamers to pay upfront for a title and because no downloads are associated with it.
But at the moment, interest from customers is relatively low because prices are too high, and some fear that they will not actually own the titles they play.
Given the improvements in the network infrastructure that powers the modern consoles from Microsoft and Sony, it's very possible that in the far future no digital downloads and no retail packages will be required to enjoy the most recent releases.
Until then, most gamers still prefer to buy their video games rather than simply stream them.