It looks like cloud-gaming service Gaikai is looking into being more than just a game-streaming service for gamers—but they’re looking at a foray into gaming centered TV scheduling. Earlier this week, the cloud-gaming outfit announced a deal with gaming video network Machinima; together they will seek to bring popular gaming-related entertainment to Gaikai’s open platform.

Reported by GamePolitics, Machinima has a broad audience and a notable impact that they’ve gathered through being a YouTube channel with a multitude of partners. According to Gaikai, the channel reaches an audience of 168 million gamers, who viewed more than 1.61 billion videos in the month of April.

“We’re greatly expanding the value of what Gaikai offers gamers and our platform partners by collaborating with Machinima to provide award-winning video content that dramatically enriches the end-user experience,” said Robert Stevenson, EVP at Gaikai. “Machinima has quickly grown into the world’s most popular video entertainment network for gamers by creating exceptional programming, which can be integrated seamlessly using the Gaikai cloud service.”

This should become interesting because Gaikai is in direct competition with other cloud-gaming companies such as California-based OnLive. Earlier this year, we heard that OnLive penned a deal that would integrate their technology into Google TVs; and near the end of 2011, they also began a strong foray into the world of mobile devices including support for the Xperia PLAY.

We’ve seen Gaikai maneuvering to position themselves in gamer culture by focusing on streaming MMO games such as Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online; and fomented a partnership with graphics chip-maker Nvidia involving the production of cloud-gaming video cards.

Adding video content to their service line-up will put them more in line with other gamer services who appeal to a wide audience. After all, streaming a game is not very different from streaming a video when it comes to the end device (perhaps with a difference in how users engage the controls.) Being able to access gaming entertainment alongside playing videogames via the same service might give them a edge against the competition.

“Our content keeps our fans highly engaged and active with their favorite games, and has increasingly expanded to original series,” said Sanjay Sharma, EVP Strategy and Business Development at Machinima. “Gaikai’s open cloud platform and ever growing list of impressive platform partners will allow us to increase our brand’s reach across multiple platforms.”

Of course, we cannot overlook how this will greatly influence Machinima.

With another distribution network available for their video entertainment, the once-YouTube network will be reaching a much broader audience. Not all gamers go to their PCs to watch videos (to access sites such as YouTube) and while YouTube and web video is often piped to consoles and gaming devices, and available through apps, having it directly integrated into a gaming service means that their primary audience (gamers) will be seeing hooks for their programming daily.