Data Backup Digest

While the true potential of cloud computing has yet to be fully realized, cloud-based networks and applications have already proven their worth throughout the IT industry. Because of this, it should come as no surprise that today's popular video game developers - including Sony - may be eying cloud technology for their next video game console.

In fact, there has been widespread speculation throughout the gaming industry that the latest video game consoles - both Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One - could mark the end of console gaming as we know it today. For better or for worse, it seems cloud computing certainly is the way of the future.

Sony is already utilized cloud-based gaming on a small scale with their PlayStation Plus program, which gives subscribers the opportunity to backup their saved games directly to Sony's cloud-based servers. Full games can even be purchased and downloaded from their servers onto a PlayStation 4 console.

Adding even more fuel to the speculation is the fact that Sony Computer Entertainment's executive vice president, Masayasu Ito, alluded to the possibility of implementing a cloud-based platform for their next console release. While he did not make an official declaration one or the other, his recent statement only gives more credence to the circulating rumors.

"I think there will be a PS5. However, I don't know what form it'll have," said Ito in a recent interview with the popular Japanese publication known as Nikkei. "It could be a physical console, or it could be in the cloud. But even if the form might change, PS5 Games will be born. This is what we want."

While the PlayStation 5 may indeed feature a cloud-based platform, that doesn't mean that it won't rely on a console - a physical device of some kind - as a means of relaying information, such as video and audio, from Sony's own remote, cloud-centric servers.

On top of the rampant speculation concerning a cloud-based gaming platform, the development team with Sony has also been hard at work on Project Morpheus: a proprietary virtual reality headset that is expected to be released for their current console, the PlayStation 4, by the end of 2016. Sony's answer to Microsoft's Oculus Rift technology, Morpheus, after it has been fully tested and refined through the PlayStation 4, could end up playing a major role in the PlayStation 5.

Although many are confident that we'll see the release of Sony's PlayStation 5 by 2020, some experts predict that we may see it much sooner than that. The typical lifecycle of modern gaming consoles are getting shorter and shorter with each new system release, and this trend is expected to continue well into the future.

For more information on Sony or any of their existing technologies, including the PlayStation 4 and Project Morpheus, you can visit their website at www.sony.com or www.playstation.com. While news regarding the PlayStation 5 is scarce and unreliable as of yet, any official information will be released on these sites as soon as they are made available to the public.