CiiNOW Makes a Play in Cloud Gaming With Virtualized Platform

CiiNOW, a leading technology provider of cloud gaming, announced today the general availability of its new cloud gaming platform – an aggressive step that will lead the industry forward in the transition from physical media to the next wave in digital distribution.

As casual and core gamers increasingly rely on digital distribution to get their gaming content and experiences, CiiNOW is the first to build a world-class, innovative cloud gaming solution that is architected for scale, cost and ease of service deployment. The platform makes it easier than ever for game publishers and service providers to meet consumer demand for high-quality online multimedia services and entertainment.

The CiiNOW software platform enables delivery of visually rich applications from a cloud compute infrastructure built with commodity servers. CiiNOW’s unique scalable container technology virtualizes applications and optimally maps games and applications to available resources resulting in a fully automated infrastructure. In addition, with ultra-low latency, the CiiNOW platform also delivers games to the end user with comparable performance to using local current generation consoles.

“In the last twelve months alone, we’ve seen a significant increase in the demand for cloud gaming services,” said Ron Haberman, CEO of CiiNOW. “The CiiNOW platform is built with the goal of transforming the industry. CiiNOW provides retailers, publishers, and service providers the first complete solution to offer games to anyone with a screen – utilizing the most cost efficient compute systems in the cloud. Our partners can now deliver a full range of games at a low cost and industry leading performance.”

The solution uses innovative streaming technology that minimizes bandwidth and latency while creating an immersive interactive experience at the lowest CAPEX and OPEX. For service providers, the solution offers:

  • Best-in-class streaming technology, delivering the lowest latency cloud gaming experience
  • CPU/GPU virtualization, with the lowest cost per stream that is optimized for large deployment
  • An end-to-end user management solution that can easily plug into existing authentication and billing protocols and systems
  • Fast deployment, taking just weeks to leverage existing hardware in service providers’ data centers
  • Cross-platform support, including PC, Mac, set-top box, tablet and mobile devices

For game publishers, the CiiNOW solution offers access to millions of new customers and new monetization opportunities via CiiNOW’s global service provider partners. In addition, the service provides input via gamepad support as well as other input methods and minimal game porting is needed. The service also allows customers to spectate or step in to take control of a friend’s remote game session across different service provider platforms.

Major industry players have already shown interest in CiiNOW, with an investment and partnership with AMD Ventures announced today, as well as prior investments with Alcatel-Lucent and Foundation Capital. In addition, CiiNOW is currently working with some of the largest service providers around the world to power their cloud gaming solutions.

CiiNOW technology is available immediately.