We have seen cloud-based gaming systems take its share of lumps lately, thanks mostly to the recent restructuring of the OnLive service. This week, another company called Agawi announced plans to offer streaming PC games via a partnership with Microsoft.
The company"s press release states that they will be using Microsoft"s Windows Azure cloud-based services to deliver streaming PC games to Windows 8 devices. The company will provide game developers and publishers a way to stream games to a Windows 8 "Modern" app. The kind of games that will support the service will range from small casual titles to more hardcore PC games.
TechCrunch chatted with Agawi"s CEO Peter Relan who said they plan to avoid some of the issues that OnLive encountered. For one thing, using Windows Azure as their server host means that they won"t have to purchase and set up their own streaming game services, as OnLive did. Another difference is that Agawi won"t directly offer streaming PC games to Windows 8 users. Instead, they will simply offer their technology for other developers and publishers to use.
Agawi also seems to know the current limitations of streaming PC games. Relan says that they won"t offer games that have high system requirements, such as the more complex first person shooters, on their service.
Source: Agawi press release