The cloud gaming market came onto the scene in a big way throughout 2019 and 2020 with the debuts of Stadia, GeForce Now, Amazon Luna, Shadow, and Microsoft xCloud, but there was one more contender that didn’t see the light of day. Walmart was working on its own cloud gaming service known as “Project Storm” that, as revealed in new court documents, would have worked a lot like GeForce Now.
The Epic Games versus Apple trial that’s going on right now has released a lot of interesting information surrounding not just the two companies, but also their relationships with others. As noted by the Verge, some of the documents also reveal that “Project Storm” by Walmart would have worked just like GeForce Now.
Using technology from LiquidSky, a company Walmart acquired, “Project Storm” would have enabled cloud gaming from what is essentially a high-powered Windows PC. Documents from Epic show that the platform would have worked by streaming games that a user had already purchased from storefronts such as Steam, Epic Games, Origin, UPlay, Bethesda, and Battle.net. The games would have been streamed to smartphones alongside PCs, tablets, and TVs too.
In addition to the revenue from the service, Epic said that Walmart would have also sold a gaming controller clip in its store that would let a phone mount to a controller. Apparently, that clip would have been sold for as little as $2.
At this point, it’s unclear if “Project Storm” will ever see the light of day. The service was supposed to launch in beta in 2019, but apparently the pandemic played a role in putting the project on hold, despite publisher and developer deals having been signed around the service.
More on Cloud Gaming:
- Jedi: Fallen Order is now free on Stadia Pro in celebration of Star Wars Day
- GeForce Now tests shorter launch times by preloading games, directly linking accounts
- Amazon Luna now supports 720p game streaming cap for bandwidth savings
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments