Gaikai gets ex-Sony, Activision execs

Gaikai may be producing a brand-new way for gamers to play with streaming browser-based games, but the company is enlisting help from a pair of pros who found success with more traditional distribution methods. Gaikai today announced that it has appointed Sony veteran Phil Harrison and ex-Activision exec Robin Kaminsky to its advisory board.

Harrison is best known as the former president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, a position he left in February of 2008 after 15 years with the company. His next job would not be so long-lived, as Harrison joined Atari as the publisher's president a week after leaving Sony. Just over a year into his tenure there, Harrison relinquished the presidency but remained with Atari on the board of directors. In April of 2010, he resigned from that position as well. Currently, Harrison is a general partner at London Venture Partners.

As for Kaminsky, she helped build Activision into the largest third-party publisher in the world as the company's executive vice president of publishing. After Kaminsky joined the company in 2005, Activision acquired the Guitar Hero franchise, turned Call of Duty into a dominant first-person shooter franchise, and struck an $18.9 billion deal with Vivendi to bring the Blizzard label in-house. Kaminsky left the publisher in October of 2008 and is currently CEO of her own consulting outfit, 1st Street Partners, as well as an executive-in-residence at Rustic Canyon Partners, one of Gaikai's primary funders.

When it launches, Gaikai will let players demo and purchase games like Call of Duty or World of Warcraft through a browser-based interface built on common technologies like Java and Flash. Currently the system is in closed beta testing, with no announced public rollout date.