PlayGiga acquisition might see Facebook enter the cloud gaming market soon

Facebook has made several notable acquisitions over the last decade and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In 2014, it paid $2 billion for Oculus and its VR technology. Then, last month, the social media company bought Beat Games – the game studio behind hit VR rhythm title "Beat Saber." It seems that it might be investing its resources on gaming, which is clearly a lucrative business. Now, it appears to be diversifying its reach into cloud gaming with its $78 million purchase of PlayGiga.

This development was made public via a tweet welcoming the developers into its fold. Industry analysts speculate that Facebook might have plans to come up with its own game streaming service later on. This segment of the gaming market is showing remarkable growth as Google banks on the Stadia and Microsoft on its Project xCloud platform. Sony, on the other hand, is already ahead of the pack with its PlayStation Now, which launched in 2014.

Prior to Facebook's acquisition, PlayGiga's cloud gaming service was available in four countries: Spain, Chile, Argentina and Italy. On top of its currently supported territories, the company was reportedly planning to expand to the Netherlands, Guatemala, Austria, Sweden and the Middle East. The Verge reveals that there are 300 games in its library. However, the gaming arm of the social media platform is yet to confirm if it will push for game streaming soon.

Now that it has the infrastructure in place, the transition to cloud-based gameplay will be a lot easier for Facebook. On the other hand, in order to stand up to the likes of Google, Microsoft and Sony, it would need to feature a great lineup of exclusives. Furthermore, it can sit down with popular third-party publishers to port their software over its platform.

The addition of PlayGiga to its roster is a sign of growth for the social media company. A new report pertaining to its user's privacy could affect its reliability. According to cybersecurity experts, a database with more than 267 million Facebook user IDs, phone numbers and names was posted online for the public to see. The archive was promptly taken down after discovery while investigations are still ongoing.