Facebook has acquired PlayGiga; a Spanish Cloud gaming company. PlayGiga had previously covered Italy, Argentina, Chile, and Spain in the offering of its services.
Facebook acquired the gaming company in a deal worth €70 million (around $78 million).
Facebook Gaming’s official Twitter account confirmed the deal. The company said, “We’re thrilled to welcome @PlayGigaOficial to the Facebook Gaming team. We’ll decline further comment for now.”
A message on PlayGiga’s website says that the team is “moving on to something new” but confirmed that it would be continuing its work on cloud gaming.
The acquisition comes in the light of the fast growing cloud gaming market owing to the entry of some big new players.
Just last month, Google launched its Stadia service, while Microsoft is previewing its own xCloud platform ahead of its official launch in 2020. Meanwhile, Sony has had a cloud gaming service of its own, PlayStation Now, for a few years now, but recently dropped its price to $9.99 a month.
In comparison to the other more significant gaming entries and deals, PlayGiga is a far smaller cloud gaming company, but prior to the acquisition it had plans to expand. As well as its existing four markets, Variety notes that it was previously planning a launch in the Middle East, and had explored offering its 300-strong library of games in Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and Guatemala.
There are no indications that Facebook will use the acquisition to launch a cloud gaming service of its own, but PlayGiga’s publisher relationships and streaming technology would make it a lot easier to do so.
