When exploring the new approaches to this continuously evolving industry, platform leaders are exploring new avenues to get ahead on its competitors. In terms of revenue, live-service is all the talk. And with free-to-play projects underway – alike on mobile – advertisements will be coming. In a previous report, it was confirmed both Microsoft & Sony are researching ways to integrate it into Xbox and PlayStation respectively.
In terms of delivering for its platform, artificial intelligence (AI) is also being considered. Thus far, Microsoft has confirmed that this will be a new tent pole approach for its games moving forward. Recently, the Xbox firm revealed a new partnership with inworld to properly transition aspects of development to AI-generated elements. Similarly, PlayStation has also adopted AI into its business model too.
According to a press release in early November, Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired AI solutions firm iSize. The effort is said to boost the firms R&D division internally. The PlayStation firm previously confirmed 10 percent of its investments is to R&D and this is a transaction of the commitment.
We are thrilled to announce that Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (“SIE”) has entered into an agreement to acquire iSIZE, a UK-based company specializing in deep learning for video delivery. iSIZE builds AI-powered solutions to deliver bitrate savings and quality improvements for the media and entertainment industry. The acquisition provides SIE with significant expertise in applying machine learning to video processing, which will benefit a range of our R&D efforts as well as our video and streaming services.
“Founded in 2016 and based in London, iSIZE has a team of talented engineers and technical experts who have developed a suite of software solutions to optimize video. For example, the company built an AI-based perceptual preprocessing solution that allows conventional, third-party encoders to produce higher quality video at a significantly lower bitrate,” the press release goes on to read.
Additionally, there has been an update on the live-service model that PlayStation is actively pursuing. In that, the firm verified roughly half of its live-service projects aimed to release by 2026 have been delayed. You can read the full report by heading here.
What is your impression on the acquisition of iSIZE for PlayStation?
Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
