AT&T No Longer Looking Into Cloud Gaming?

AT&T has spent several months looking into whether its network could let you instantly try games for free. The company then hinted at a potential try-before-you-buy game service which would allow you to try a game directly from a search result, buy and download a full copy once you decide you like it, and then pick up right where you left off in the game. Both of these ideas had big potential, as no current cloud gaming service offered such features. However, it looks as if AT&T has abandoned those ideas, and has no intention of creating a cloud gaming business at all.

“We’re not going to turn it into a business,” said Matthew Wallace, Assistant Vice President of 5G Product and Innovation for AT&T. “Our goal in life is not to provide a gaming app or gaming service; it’s to provide the underlying network capability and then make those capabilities available to the gaming companies and customers.”

Rather than launching their own gaming service, it appears AT&T is looking to add to its all-star roster of partners, a list that already includes Google and Microsoft. AT&T says their job is to partner with gaming companies and figure out how their network might better serve their needs.

“Our focus is what we can do in the network to make sure the customer session has the right characteristics,” said Wallace.

Wallace says this includes not just radio performance, but also optimized paths for all the data going through the network, shortening the time it takes to travel “from the mobile core to where the applications are.”

He added that the company’s been testing quality-of-service adjustments that could “ensure resources are allocated to customers who are using a cloud gaming app,” which translates to AT&T prioritizing cloud gaming uses over other kinds of data.

However, this testing is still in its very early stages and “it’s not something we’ve been offering live yet,” added Wallace. “We have not figured out go-to-market on any of these things, but you could imagine a future where for the right service levels, gaming just works for the customer — they don’t have to do anything special.”

(All information was provided by The Verge)