It has emerged that Sony has trademarked "PS Cloud", suggesting that the platform holder may be looking into providing a service similar to OnLive.

The trademark was registered on March 24th, just a day after news of OnLive's cloud-based gaming service emerged.

There are two likely possibilities here. The first (and most likely, given the timing) is that with the emergence of what looks like a serious play to introduce cloud-based gaming to the market, Sony is simply protecting its brand.

The second, of course, is that Sony is working on a cloud-based project of its own. This could be a new project for streamed games either for the PS3 or PSP, or it could be part of plans for its next generation platforms.

Whether Sony was thinking seriously about cloud-based gaming before last week or not, the chances are that it is now.

Cloud-based gaming will, in theory, enable users to enjoy gaming without meaty, expensive hardware in their homes thanks to processing being handled by remote servers.

The problem has been issues with data compression, but OnLive claims to have solved this, while Acclaim's Dave Perry has said that he has a similar project underway.