Playcast and Cable TV Operator CJ Hellovision Bring Cloud Gaming Service to South Korea

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Wednesday, 11 July 2012 16:22

Korea’s leading cable operator, CJ Hellovision and leading cloud gaming company Playcast Media Systems today announced they have entered a deal to launch a cloud gaming service set to change the way video games are played in Korea. The service will allow cable-TV subscribers to play console-quality video games from the world’s major game publishers through their existing set-top boxes. The new service will offer an assortment of the industry’s leading game titles in an affordable monthly subscription package. CJ Hellovision has 3.51 million subscribers and is a subsidiary of regional giant CJ Corp.

Korea’s video games market has very limited home gaming options. The new cloud gaming service by CJ and Playcast brings console-quality gaming to many Korean homes for the first time. In the US, Europe and Japan, the multi-billion dollars per year market has been dominated by physical distribution of game DVDs to dedicated gaming hardware, such as Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox. With few game consoles in Korea, gamers attend one of more than 20,000 internet cafes (PC bangs) to play games. Playcast’s video games streaming solution brings console-quality gaming without the need for a console, the games DVD, or leaving home – it’s as simple as zapping into a TV channel.

Young-gook Lee, Chief Marketing Officer at CJ Hellovision commented:

“We are very proud to offer the Cloud Gaming service with such high quality games to our subscribers. With our strength across both cable and over the top services, and Koreans’ insatiable appetite for video games, we are looking forward to make a historical shift in the marketplace.”

Guy de Beer, Playcast Media CEO said,:

“Korea is a gaming nation – one of the largest consumers of video games in the world, yet consoles are practically non-existent. Our service leaps beyond legacy consoles, and straight into cloud gaming. The best gaming content becomes available to millions of Koreans with in a click of the TV remote control.”