For the last few weeks, some kind of impressive new thing from SEGA was being hyped up. Rumors came and went, but we finally have some concrete details on the SEGA Fog Gaming reveal — and I don't think it wasn't what anyone expected.
Let's kill some rumors right off the bat: no, SEGA is not making a new console (although they are coming out with something cool along those lines). As far as we know, they aren't being bought by Microsoft, either. If you think it's something huge like these rumors, you're gonna be disappointed.
Instead, the SEGA Fog Gaming reveal is all about arcade gaming. That might sound disappointing, but they might have actually cooked up something pretty interesting. This "revolutionary" reveal might actually revolutionize the arcade industry.
What is the SEGA Fog Gaming Reveal All About?
The best source of details on the SEGA Fog Gaming reveal is from Ryokutya2089 (Via @PushDustin), a Japanese blogger who often digs up interesting things about the gaming industry. According to him, the latest issue of Famitsu breaks down the basics of "Fog Gaming" and what SEGA is doing with it.
If you're unfamiliar with game arcades, they typically contain banks of different machines. These massive boxes are essentially a computer, a screen, and a controller. The "computer" portion is often a custom-made board for the game in question, although some machines do have the ability to download games over the Internet, swap out cartridges, or other similar mechanisms.
SEGA Fog Gaming intends to solve many of these problems through the use of fog computing, a technique that is a subset of cloud computing. Essentially, cloud computing will be used to power arcade centers, preventing the arcade owners from having to constantly swap out machines and lowering costs overall. Additionally, it may allow them to let people game on devices even when the arcade is closed, via making them available to play over short-range cloud's.
So yes, that's it: the SEGA Fog Gaming reveal is basically cloud computing coming to Japanese arcades. Western arcades are a little more niche compared to Japan, but it's certainly possible that we'll see the technology deployed here in some fashion in the future. In the meantime, I'll be looking up Time Crisis cabinets on eBay and reminscing about the good old days.
What do you think of SEGA's push towards "Fog Gaming?" Do you think this might bring some new energy to the arcade industry? Let us know in the comments below!