As broadband becomes more widely adopted and speeds continue to increase, it was pretty much a guarantee that sooner or later one of the big three console makers would get into the cloud gaming arena, which up until this point has been ruled by the likes of OnLive and Gaikia. Sony has taken a huge step in that direction by acquiring the latter company, and setting up for what should be a very interesting next generation of gaming.

The acquisition of Gaikai doesn’t come as a huge surprise, the timing does. As many rumors where floating around before and during the Electronic Entertainment Expo that such an announcement would take place. While a deal may have not been reached at the time, turns out the rumors were true and Sony is well on its way to having some sort of cloud gaming implementation in its next iteration of the PlayStation.

So what could a cloud-based gaming solution bring to the table for the next PlayStation?

Sony may no longer need to include special hardware in the next device that would allow for backwards compatibility. Since the games could be delivered via the cloud, it frees up hardware costs, as well as allowing Sony to make a smaller, more streamlined device.

Also, that same back catalog can be delivered to other devices such as smart TV’s, the PlayStation Vita and smartphone’s, as well as tablets. Really the possibilities are endless here, granted the end user has a good internet connection.

The cloud is great, but I don’t really expect software of the upcoming generation to be cloud based, not even the demos. Point being that Sony should want their latest and greatest to run at its maximum potential. The occasional lag or less than desirable graphic may be okay for older things, but new titles should be expected to run superbly. That being said, we should definitely expect Sony to utilize Gaikai server technology to deliver digital downloads of these next generation titles to the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation Vita.

I guess we really just have to wait and see what Sony has up its sleeve, but the potential is apparent, and E3 2013 can’t get here soon enough. Yes, the next generation is shaping up nicely.