Here’s something I didn’t expect to hear from the gaming scene, Sony and Microsoft have formed a strategic partnership to tackle cloud gaming. Yep, that is actually a thing that’s happening.
According to their partnership:
Sony and Microsoft will explore a joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services. As part of the memorandum of understanding, Sony and Microsoft will also explore collaboration in the areas of semiconductors and AI. For semiconductors, this includes potential joint development of new intelligent image sensor solutions.
By integrating Sony’s cutting-edge image sensors with Microsoft’s Azure AI technology in a hybrid manner across cloud and edge, as well as solutions that leverage Sony’s semiconductors and Microsoft cloud technology, the companies aim to provide enhanced capabilities for enterprise customers.
Now they never directly mentioned the PlayStation or the Xbox in their statement however, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that those areas will receive some benefit from this unexpected partnership. With Google Stadia making moves to take the cloud-gaming scene to the next level, this might be Sony and Microsoft’s way to tackle that by working together and share their resources. I mean, who’s to say that both companies will compete on the console market while working together to face both Google’s Stadia and the upcoming Amazon’s streaming service as well. It’s far-fetched but possible.
Or it could be that they plan on using the other’s tech to improve other aspects of their business. It’s too soon to tell but this is very interesting to say the least.
Either way this is the closest sign of collaboration between these two fierce competitors in the console-gaming space in recent history, so of course all eyes are on this right now. It may not mean that they’ll stop been competitors and I certainly hope it doesn’t but cross-play might be a possibility like never before.
