When Sony Corp. unveiled a cloud gaming pact with archrival Microsoft Corp., it surprised the industry. Perhaps no one was more shocked than employees of Sony’s PlayStation division, who have spent almost two decades fighting the U.S. software giant in the $38 billion video game console market.
Last week, the companies announced a strategic partnership to co-develop game streaming technology and host some of PlayStation’s online services on the Redmond-based company’s Azure cloud platform. It comes after PlayStation spent seven years developing its own cloud gaming offering, with limited success.