Source: El Pais
ANTEL announced on July 22nd that it signed an agreement with ABYA - the developer of technological solutions focused on the video game market - to host the gaming service in the cloud through the Data Center that the state company has in Pando.
Abya's project will have Nvidia as a client, a multinational technology company that has GeForce NOW, a video game streaming service in the cloud that already has 80 million players between Asia and the United States. Abya's objective is to install its servers in Antel's Data Center in order to bring the cloud video game industry closer to more people in Latin America and other emerging markets at a lower cost.
Over the past decade, the video game industry has seen significant growth and is expected to continue to grow in the coming years. According to figures released by the market data platform Statista, it is estimated that the industry will exceed the US $ 200,000 million mark in 2023.
However, as he explained days ago in a dialogue with El País Franco Miceli, founder and executive director of Abya, to play video games you need to have a computer that is around US $ 1,500 or US $ 2,000 between a graphic plate, monitor and the computer in Yes.
This is why in recent years cloud gaming, which is a type of internet game that allows people to play through any electronic device in real time, has acquired special relevance.
Abya is a company founded by three Uruguayans: the businessman Waldemar Fernández, the CEO of Genexus, Nicolás Jodal and the engineer and current CEO of Abya, Franco Miceli. The announcement was made at a press conference in which, in addition to the Abya authorities, the president of Antel, Gabriel Gurméndez and the general manager of the entity, Annabela Suburú, also participated.
According to Gurméndez, Antel will provide the Data Center infrastructure so that the technological project takes "video game content in streaming mode on a very broad platform, to a potential market in the region of about 100 million users."
In his view, the project, in addition to being "innovative and technological," will allow "reaching Antel's clients with an exclusive product."
For his part, Miceli pointed out that before choosing Antel to host the technology project, Abya evaluated different locations and suppliers in the region. "We conclude that both Uruguay and Antel are a strategic decision due to their geographic location, excellent international connectivity and Data Center infrastructure, and settling here allows us to serve the entire Southern Cone with this service with such high requirements," he said.
According to the CEO of Abya, "game consoles and gaming PCs are prohibitively expensive in Latin America", so the objective of the company and of this specific project is to be able to provide access "to the players to the power of the cloud to be able to play hundreds of triple A titles ”(high-quality video games with high production values), for an“ affordable monthly subscription ”, in a mode similar to that offered by Netflix in the audiovisual industry.
The creation of the “Netflix of video games” was supported by organizations such as the National Research and Innovation Agency (ANII), Thales Lab and Antel.
According to Miceli, “it is an honor to have been able to initiate this high-level engineering effort from our own country” and stated that they hope to “reach the mass markets of the world” with what will be “the first cloud gaming platform in Latin America”.
In dialogue with El País, Fernández, one of the founders of Abya in charge of the financial part of the project, indicated that the company's investment is in the millions and specified that each of the servers that will be installed in the Antel Data Center around US $ 120,000. So far "we have already placed about US $ 6 million and that is only the beginning, we are going to continue advancing and adding servers as the market continues to grow," said the businessman. In that sense, Fernández indicated that expectations are optimistic given that they already have "a waiting list of almost 200,000 people who are waiting for our service and are ready to be subscribers."
Although no details of the business plan were given, the Antel president said that by the end of the year the different products available in the local market will be announced.
Regarding the video game industry, Gurméndez pointed out that it is "one of the most dynamic sectors in demand for content and entertainment in the world" and stated that Antel "is called to be the great facilitator" of this type of initiative. The state-owned company is going to have a policy of “finding similar alliances in all areas of generation of added value and in the new modalities of digital businesses that are planned.
