Some more consolidation in cloud-based gaming services: Sony Computer Entertainment announced today that it will pay $380 million to acquire Gaikai, the California-based provider of a platform that currently delivers some 40 games, including Mass Effect, the Sims, and FIFA Soccer, as cloud-based services to a variety of devices, without the need of a games console. We'd first heard murmurs about a tie-up between Gaikai and Sony in May, and the deal raises questions of what might happen next with rival streaming platform OnLive. The move is a sign of how console-based companies are feeling the pressure to offer other, cheaper routes to accessing games content via other devices, as revenues from hardware-based services decline. Sony, makers of the PlayStation, says that as a result of the deal, it will establish a new cloud gaming service, as yet unnamed.