Walmart & Gaikai team up to provide streaming demos

‘Cloud gaming’ service Gaikai has landed a hefty retailer partnership deal with Walmart.
As a result, Gaikai now offers streaming demos of games through Walmart’s Game Center page. At present, you can only try out EA’s Mass Effect 2 and Dead Space 2 (the same demos the service was offering when it launched a few months back), but deals with twenty other publishers are said to be in the works.
“Over the next 12 months, when people see a video game on TV and want to try it out, they can be sure the fastest way will be on Walmart’s website,” said Gaikai’s ever-eager Dave Perry.
All the hardware-side stuff (graphics and the like) is handled by Gaikai’s servers, so to start up a streaming demo all you need is a decent internet connection. When I gave Dead Space 2 a try in March it suffered from a lack of graphical clarity, but did run smoothly enough for me to experience the game.
Of course, once you’ve demoed the game through Walmart’s site, there’s an option to purchase a physical copy of the title on the platform of your choice.
Source: Gamasutra