Sony may be the latest company to explore the hot topic of cloud computing, the off-loading of software and services to remote servers, based on recent trademark filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has registered a trademark for "PS Cloud," protecting it against it against all manner of video game-related things, like "entertainment services, namely, providing an on-line video game that users may access through the internet." The possible service, which has not been announced, could follow the recently announced OnLive model, which plays your games remotely, or Valve's SteamCloud service, which hosts Steam user preferences and game saves on outside servers.
If we had our druthers, the latter might be more appealing, as having more remote access to account-specific content could be a boon to PlayStation 3 (and PSP) owners who would like to have game saves and DRM-restricted content away from their home console. It's not like the PS3 is the most portable of game machines.
But if it were the former, the ability to play games that aren't stored locally, especially on the PSP, could be appealing. A cloud-based service could possibly come with fees attached, as OnLive has planned, revenue that would likely help Sony's PlayStation business out.
Or it could be a big, fluffy cloud controller. That would be just heavenly.
Keep in mind that some filed trademarks never make it to market as an actual product, so we're just getting our kicks speculating.
PS Cloud [USPTO]