The Cloud sounds the death knell of Software and video games piracy

The need to combat software piracy and the billions in lost revenue to it  will drive companies to the Cloud with profound changes for our way of consuming digital media.


Steam and iTunes D2D PSN and XBox Arcade have done much to combat piracy, through throwing kudos onto downloading games legitimately ,  but the problem remains  games and data still need to be downloaded ,and as long as there is local storage of  data piracy will continue.


But the pirates days are numbered : 


Video games, and other software will very soon be entirely hosted and run on cloud , with nothing to download ,  there is nothing for a pirate to pirate  , no torrent , no warez ,and nothing to crack ,  all piracy ends the day our games and operating systems are hosted on and run from the cloud . 


Access to the cloud service is what will be sold to the user , access through Steam Itunes , PSN , XBox live and major players like Google , Amazon , and Microsoft have been preparing cloud services for several years now. 


Further the devices that use cloud games and software , including operating systems , will no longer need hard disks , eliminating bulk and reducing hardware costs  , data streaming acceleration will come into play as important as GPU and CPU acceleration is today.  


Cloud based activation of games , will be hardcoded into the Bios of the games machines and computers , so even if the data of the game is leaked , as always happens it will be useless without a cloud based machine to run it , the data itself is tagged to look for use outside a real users account.


Ubisoft  already use their highly effective  deterrent always connected to the Internet DRM ,  but pirates can still hack the local data , now imagine the game itself sitting in the Ubisoft Cloud and all you have on your end is the security check , in that scenario the pirate cannot get to the game data  , there will never be a torrent to download , and for legitimate users there will never be the need to download 17 gigs of game . You play instantly .


Our concept of owning digital media and software will have to change  but even more radically our concept of owning hardware will change . Instead of buying a £3000 gaming machine , or a £300 games console we will buy access to the Sony , Microsoft , Apple or Nintendo Cloud , casuals making micropayments and hardcore gamers opting for monthly or yearly contracts , even lifetime subscriptions . 


So the future  Playstation or Xbox  may not be a console at all  , it may just be access to the Sony or Microsoft Cloud , with ALL their back catalogue digitally streaming , come to think of it the big industry figures could move out of hardware altogether , so buying a subscription to the Google/Microsoft /Sony /Nintendo Cloud , could let you stream their software to multiple devices  from phones tablets consoles to pcs and macs , [well Steve probably won`t allow that last one] .As the OS and game are both hosted on the relevant cloud , there is no need to care about selling or manufacturing hardware , you can use the same console to have access to all your favourite game Clouds 


The money in games comes from games, eliminate the hardware and you eliminate the 4 or 5 years of loss making before you start turning a profit as per XBox 360  and PS3. 


This is a brave frontier who ever embraces it successfully  will make what iTunes and Steam have done look amateur by comparison.


There are whispers of an Apple Cloud replacing syncing woes for all your iTunes purchases , how long before Sony Microsoft and Nintendo see the silver lining to Cloud computing , and when this happens  remember we have the humble software pirates to thank for it....