PlayStation Games Unlimited would be pretty smart

Having just tried out Music Unlimited (a service I wouldn't piss on, if it was on fire) I have greater hopes for Sony's next venture. If the rumours are true and the fates align, Sony will buy game streaming-to-a-browser service Gaikai and turn that browser into your PS3 or PS Vita's screen. And the content for a PlayStation Games Unlimited subscription service will be pretty much every PSone and PS2 game (licensing issues aside).

So, Games Unlimited would offer pretty much the history of Sony gaming streamed to your Vita for a monthly rental fee. That would be pretty amazing, and more efficient than buying each game, downloading it and juggling storage as your Vita card fills up (once PSone compatibility is enabled). Plus, if there is some reason the Vita can't handle PS2 games natively, the streaming service gets neatly around it. PS3, and eventually PS4 owners, would also benefit from the easy to access to a huge amount of games.

More people would probably pay £6.99 a month for this service to access a huge library of games than dropping the odd £6.99 every few months when another PSone game struggles onto the PSN store. Sony rakes in more cash, older games get more exposure and Sony has a mighty big stick to sell cheap(ish) PS3s with a subscription and, maybe, the same for PS Vita later on.

That service could also be streamed directly to Sony phones, tablets, TVs and so on (which is why we probably won't see an Xperia Play 2). With such a wide audience, I can't see third party publishers refusing to let their games appear and there's no reason it can't stretch to 16-bit and 8-bit eras in one almighty MAME-on-demand service.