If you happen to purchase one of LG"s TV in 2012, you might be able to stream high end PC games directly to the television. On Tuesday, the streaming game service Gaikai announced at CES 2012 that it has signed an agreement with LG to provide some of its Smart TVs, such as the LG Cinema 3D TV, access to purchase and stream full PC games to those TVs. The Gaikai service will go live on some LG televisions later in 2012.
While Gaikai"s service has been used to offer streaming PC game demos for web sites such as Best Buy, YouTube and others, this new deal with LG will feature full PC games that will be purchased directly from the LG television"s Smart TV interface. A prototype of the Gaikai-LG streaming game service is being shown on the CES 2012 show floor this week.
This new deal is a big one for Gaikai, which launched its service in February 2011, several months after its biggest rival OnLive launched a similar streaming game service in June 2010 for PCs and Macs. OnLive announced a deal with TV maker Vizio a year ago to provide its service directly to some Vizio televisions but so far that support has yet to launch.