Yesterday Square Enix announced the closure of their cloud based gaming platform, Shinra Technologies, through a statement on its website. The website of Shinra shut down this morning.
The company had been formed in 2014 with the goal of building a cloud-gaming platform with supercomputer-class capabilities. To help in this cause, Shinra Technologies was created as an independent subsidiary of Square Enix in order to help it retain its neutrality and independence as a platform.
Business operations solely depended on funding from third party investors, which never really materialized after the company was revealed in 2014. This lack of support ultimately led Shinra Technologies to suffer a massive financial loss of $2 billion yen, approximately $16.8 million USD, for the 2015 fiscal year. The lack of support and funding led Square Enix to make the decision to shut down operations.
First revealed at the 2014 Tokyo Game Show, the New York based company tried to differentiate itself from other cloud based options which focused video game streaming by giving developers access to multiple servers at a time, allowing for more intense experiences through better physics and greater graphics in games.
Source: Shinra, Gamerant
