CJ Hellovision, South Korea's largest cable operator, has reportedly teamed with cloud gaming company Playcast Media Systems in a deal that will result in the launch of a cloud-based gaming service that may essentially change the way video games are played in South Korea. The service will be available to cable TV subscribers, allowing them to play console-quality video games – among them the most popular game titles – from the world’s major game publishers through their existing set-top boxes.

CJ Hellovision has 3.5 million subscribers and is a subsidiary of regional giant CJ Corp., but gaming options are thus far limited in South Korea. The new cloud gaming service that will be formed by the partnership between CJ and Playcast is expected to bring console-quality gaming to many South Korean homes for the first time.

In the U.S., Europe and Japan, the multi-billion dollars per year market has been dominated by the physical distribution of game DVDs to dedicated gaming hardware, such as Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s (News - Alert) Xbox. With few game consoles in Korea, gamers attend one of more than 20,000 Internet cafes (PC bangs) to play games. Playcast’s video games streaming solution brings console-quality gaming to users without the need for a console, the games DVD, or leaving home simply by tuning in to a special TV channel.

“We are very proud to offer the Cloud Gaming service with such high quality games to our subscribers,” said Young-gook Lee, chief marketing officer at CJ Hellovision, in a press release. “With our strength across both cable and over the top services, and Koreans’ insatiable appetite for video games, we are looking forward to make a historical shift in the marketplace.”

“Korea is a gaming nation and one of the largest consumers of video games in the world, yet consoles are practically non-existent,” said Guy de Beer, Playcast Media CEO. “Our service leaps beyond legacy consoles, and straight into cloud gaming. The best gaming content becomes available to millions of Koreans with in a click of the TV remote control.”

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