Square Enix has just announced a brand new cloud gaming service called Coreonline. Supposedly, this will allow gamers to bring HD gaming to browser windows in console quality. In fact, Coreonline is built to specifically run popular console releases without requiring players’ machines to have the specs to actually run them. The system works on “a combination of Google and Square Enix’s proprietary technology,” though we don’t exactly know what that is or how it works. The service will be accessible via Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
Currently, only two titles are available for Coreonline. Mini Ninjas, a goofy action title, and Hitman: Blood Money, the previous entry in the Hitman series. That being said, the Mini Ninjas Coreonline version is actually a bit of a trick. You are actually being redirected to the Chrome Web Store which has had a streaming version of Mini-Ninjas available for some time.
Coreonline will let you play these games for free—that is, if you are willing to sit through ads. Every ten minutes of play, an ad is triggered, which gives you another ten minutes of play. This is pretty innovative, actually, as it changes games over from the current pay model or even the free-to-play model and converts them into the pay model of TV, a subscription service that runs off ads. Perhaps this is the wave of the future for gaming.