Right off the bat, I will say that this does not have anything to do with FF7's Cloud Strife. It could, however, be related to the Lifestream - but that already's a bit of a stretch. See, when you're talking Internet jargon, a cloud basically refers to a network of resources.

Cloud computing comes in when you have that cloud sharing resources for a common goal. Yes, think Folding@Home. But what's the next step for Sony?

A recent trademark has been spotted: Sony has registered the name "PS Cloud." We assume that the "PS" here stands for PlayStation, and the "Cloud" refers to a networked grid. Other than a basic description, we can only speculate as to what this PS Cloud could eventually be.

Taking from the patent description (icky jargon ahead!):

CLOUD COMPUTING DATA CENTER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE; COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE FOR CONNECTING INTERNET RADIO; COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE FOR CONNECTING INTERNET RADIO FOR HAND-HELD GAMES WITH LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS; COMPUTER GAME PROGRAMS; COMPUTERS; CONSUMER VIDEO GAME CONSOLES FOR USE WITH AN EXTERNAL DISPLAY SCREEN OR MONITOR; DOWNLOADABLE ELECTRONIC PUBLICATION IN THE NATURE OF MAGAZINES, BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS IN THE FIELD OF MUSIC, VIDEO AND VIDEO GAME; DOWNLOADABLE IMAGE FILES VIA THE INTERNET; DOWNLOADABLE MUSIC FILES VIA THE INTERNET; ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS AND CD-ROMS, ALL ENCODED AUTOMATIC PLAYING PROGRAMS FOR ELECTRONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; GAME PROGRAMS FOR HAND-HELD GAMES WITH LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAYS; GAME PROGRAMS FOR MOBILE PHONE; GAME PROGRAMS FOR CONSUMER VIDEO GAME MACHINES; HAND-HELD DIGITAL AUDIO PLAYERS; METRONOMES; PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANTS; PHONOGRAPH RECORDS FEATURING MUSIC; PRE-RECORDED VIDEO DISCS AND VIDEO TAPES FEATURING MUSIC, COMEDY, DRAMA, ACTION, ADVENTURE OR ANIMATION

Note certain keywords like "handheld", "downloadable", "game programs", and such.

As Siliconera guesses, it could mean that Sony's found a solution to footing the server maintenance/bandwidth bills. If Sony were to employ a so-called PS Cloud, they could have volunteers sharing the load (which is not to mean load sharing - that's different) of data streaming. An example would be Valve's Steam Cloud.

Think of it this way: instead of Sony taking the brunt of giving you PSN content, a PS Cloud can be seen as something as a peer-to-peer network, with seeders (and let's hope not, leechers) providing you with the content and data processing (i.e. game demos, game hosting, etc). Equally, this could also translate as a benefit to PSP users as well, considering it's already got Remote Play linking it up to a PS3.

Thanks to pytrisss for the clarifications!

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