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[DESTROYA]

The fact that processing power is coming from a server farm is already a huge power advantage over a console and in most cases a PC. Network latency is the bottleneck right now. Big tech companies upgrade their servers on a 3-5 year cycle because it is often more expensive to keep older hardware that uses more electricity. And that's not even taking into account small component upgrades.

Yeah no kidding but you think they are going to be upgrading these servers as you quoted monthly/yearly ? Bwahahahaha !
I doubt the power advantage is going to be as big as you think with next gen right around the corner when compared to these servers.

 

[reinking]

I'm very skeptical of the claim that "anybody can just try it out". First, because the biggest market, cell phone users, need to pair up a controller, as the control scheme is way too complicated for a touchscreen and we all know that not just getting a proper controller but also pairing it with a cellphone is too much to ask from the regular user.

Who carries around a Bluetooth controller anyway? A very similar situation would happen with a mainstream laptop, while anyone on PC with the proper equipment most likely already has good enough hardware to run games locally. You want to stream to your TV? No standard there to have it backed in, which means buying a dongle plus controller.

Now, you want to target the traditional demographic? The whole console business has technological advancements as part of its core identity. You can't get away with a kind of shitty stream and laggy controls, this demographic wants impressive visuals ever since the 16 bit machines arrived, with better visuals as a major selling point. We still argue over silly details and manage to find new things to argue about, even if only a tiny minority actually understand what those specs mean. Hell, spec reveals are a huge, huge part of the unveiling of a new machine.

I just don't see it. It's difficult to try, has unsatisfactory business models so far and provides a very noticeably inferior experience compared to locally running the games.

So you think a controller is the barrier to entry?

 

[vaibhavpisal]

cloud gaming is for those who want to play games but don't want to buy consoles.

its self contradicting. such people dont exist.

 

[RCU005]

Of course it's here to stay, but it's never replacing local hardware.

Never say never, but it needs many more years. Amazon and Google are forcing it, but they are too early. Even Microsoft is early with xCloud, but at least they are just doing it as an other option.

Many technological advancements need to happen in order to cloud gaming to work. It's not like a movie where it just loads while watching it. Even then, if Japan it's ready with a perfect infrastructure for cloud gaming, it's not like Sony or anyone would want to lose 90% of the market just to release a cloud gaming console.

The thing is, it's too early.

 

[tkscz]

As I said in a previous thread, on paper streaming games work. Anyone with 200Mb/s or more should be able to handle an 8th gen game with little issue.

However, under 200Mb/s, you get dips, lag, fuzzy imaging, bad response. And the average internet speed in the US is 50Mb/s, and some big networking companies like Comcast have data caps on their networks (think AT&T does as well). And that's for people who live in city areas and some who live in suburbs. Rural areas are screwed as they can either get dial up, DSL or satellite.

Then there is paying for a streaming service and also paying for the media to stream from it. If I get Netflix, I don't have to pay for the movies and shows as well as for Netflix. Look how well something like that worked out for Disney.

Now I like the idea of it, using steam link on my laptop that cannot run many games, is great. However, it isn't the most stable and I don't have to pay for steam. Stadia isn't doing that amazingly and I can't see Luna doing much better.

 

[lastmessiah]

Yeah no kidding but you think they are going to be upgrading these servers as you quoted monthly/yearly ?

Look my point is that things will be way more flexible and open to advancement than they are now. That's in the best case scenario, of course.

 

[Piku_Ringo]

I remember when saying you believed in digital game libraries would get you laughed out the room.

Fuck an all digital future tho

 

[djjinx2]

By the way, I'd suggest anyone interested in Cloud Gaming to take a look at https://shadow.tech/int/
Its simply a remote computer optimized for gaming. No proprietary shit Xcloud, psnow, luna, stadia, etc.

Love my Shadow, I can play any game in ultra wide on my phone so full screen.

 

[DESTROYA]

Look my point is that things will be way more flexible and open to advancement than they are now. That's in the best case scenario, of course.

I know the point your trying to make and I just don't see it that way, flexibility and advancement doesn’t come cheap and raising the price of these services every upgrade/advancement is not going to well with it’s customer base.
And you know no company is just going to eat the cost of making infrastructure advances and not passing them on to customers in some shape or form.

 

[pr0cs]

A day will come when traditional gaming is 100% cloud based, traditional being console-centric, casual Madden-Fifa-crowd type gamers. It will be a while but it will come. Joe Schmoe doesn't want to buy a new console every 4-8 years, he just wants to play his sports / COD games and that's it. In that regard cloud gaming will more than fill the void.

 

[Kimahri]

I'm curious. Why were people so eager to embrace streaming and "non ownership" of music, film and TV, but when it comes to games it's like streaming is the devil?

 

[diffusionx]

Here is my current stance on streaming. The technology is shit, and will always be shit. Stadia has the exact same problems OnLive had 10 years ago. The companies can claim they fixed this or that all they want, they are lying. Because we are talking about the nature of physical reality here. It will always be laggy, it will always have image quality issues, it will always be shit.

So ultimately the question is will people just accept a shitty product because it's more convenient? That is what happened with mp3s after all. Except back then, buying music was really expensive so getting 80% of the experience for 0% of the cost was really attractive for obvious reasons (especially when music was marketed to teens who had little money). But gaming isn't really like that. Gaming is really cheap and convenient these days. Fortnite is a free game, GamePass, Steam sales, etc. What is Luna giving me over GamePass that would make me accept a shitty, laggy, macroblocking video stream over high quality native gameplay?

This is why I don't see streaming catching on in videogames.

 

[Bonfires Down]

I'm curious. Why were people so eager to embrace streaming and "non ownership" of music, film and TV, but when it comes to games it's like streaming is the devil?

I’m sure there was plenty of angst about lower quality streams on nerdy music and film forums, but most people just don’t give fuck.

 

[Kimahri]

I’m sure there was plenty of angst about lower quality streams on nerdy music and film forums, but most people just don’t give fuck.

I remember it pretty well, the most angst I ever encountered was from people upset there were ads on the free version of Spotify.

 

[Calhoun]

If streaming works great for you now it may not for me.

 

[Bladed Thesis]

Of course it's here to stay, but it's never replacing local hardware.

"Hey Siri, what is Blockbuster?"

 

[IntentionalPun]

I'm curious. Why were people so eager to embrace streaming and "non ownership" of music, film and TV, but when it comes to games it's like streaming is the devil?

Owning movies / TV shows has always been kind of a niche...

Most people watched things on TV, went to the theater, and rented... DVD ownership was fairly big but still tiny compared to rental.

Completely different markets in soooooo many ways.

 

[ripeavocado]

It will die if consumers won’t get fooled but if it takes over it will take ages to go back.

 

[Daddy]

When a lot of people talk about cloud gaming they frame it as a zero sum game between "cloud gaming being the future, making hardware obsolete" and "cloud gaming failing and hardware reigns supreme". I don't think they are mutually exclusive like that; they can co-exist and thrive in the same gaming space. I'm interested in just HOW good the tech can get, because I think it's a fascinating idea.

One downside to me that people have already mentioned here is the lack of control for the consumer on both the hardware and software end. You can only choose from the selection of games they have the licence for, and the hardware is completely out of your hands. How do they upgrade it, and how often? What if they cheap out on it? Is it only upgraded once every console generation? A lot of questions and not a lot of concrete answers.

 

[Warnen]

By the end of this coming gen most people will have switched to cloud gaming.

 

[lock2k]

I do think it's here to stay, but as another option. It doesn't need to exclude the other ways of gaming. Things will be fine.

 

[notseqi]

No more fixed architecture underpowered mass produced cheap boxes as the base standard for one.

Maybe Valve should look into that.

 

[Daddy]

Here is my current stance on streaming. The technology is shit, and will always be shit. Stadia has the exact same problems OnLive had 10 years ago. The companies can claim they fixed this or that all they want, they are lying. Because we are talking about the nature of physical reality here. It will always be laggy, it will always have image quality issues, it will always be shit.

So ultimately the question is will people just accept a shitty product because it's more convenient? That is what happened with mp3s after all. Except back then, buying music was really expensive so getting 80% of the experience for 0% of the cost was really attractive for obvious reasons (especially when music was marketed to teens who had little money). But gaming isn't really like that. Gaming is really cheap and convenient these days. Fortnite is a free game, GamePass, Steam sales, etc. What is Luna giving me over GamePass that would make me accept a shitty, laggy, macroblocking video stream over high quality native gameplay?

This is why I don't see streaming catching on in videogames.

You make a great point. Sometimes I'll be watching something on Netflix and I'll notice how bad the bit rate is, even at the highest quality setting. Would people accept that for games? I think the majority wouldn't, like you said. I think of all the big entertainment mediums, video games are the one where the average person will value fidelity more than any other medium by far. And that's not even getting into things that film/music/etc don't have to consider, like responsiveness and the "feel" of it.

So the question becomes, will the tech ever get to the point where it reaches traditional hardware levels of fidelity? Is that even possible on such a large scale? We'll have to see.

 

[Kimahri]

Owning movies / TV shows has always been kind of a niche...

Most people watched things on TV, went to the theater, and rented... DVD ownership was fairly big but still tiny compared to rental.

Completely different markets in soooooo many ways.

Electronic stores, convenience stores, even kiosks were loaded with VHS and DVDs. Of course rental was bigger, but that doesn't diminish in any way how completely common and ordinary it was for everyone to own movies. You'd find more VHSs and DVDs in a given house than video games.

You didn't say anything about music though, of which there was no rental service.

 

[Sir Vilhelm]

MS has the right approach. Having options is never a bad thing, I like that I can have local hardware AND ALSO be able to play on the road while traveling or play try a game on XCloud before spending the time to download.

I wouldn't be interested in cloud only offerings however

 

[Bryank75]

They've all failed miserably. I don't know where the 'threat' is.....

 

[IntentionalPun]

Electronic stores, convenience stores, even kiosks were loaded with VHS and DVDs. Of course rental was bigger, but that doesn't diminish in any way how completely common and ordinary it was for everyone to own movies. You'd find more VHSs and DVDs in a given house than video games.

You didn't say anything about music though, of which there was no rental service.

It's all relative; most of the world watched film/tv in some way and most of the world did not actually buy it. Huge swaths of that massive market rented or watched TV or went to theaters only.

Almost everyone who games, buys games.. particularly the console market. How many people you know only rent games for their console?

There's also lots of people who don't care about "game ownership" either though, just saying the market started as ownership only.

 

[ethomaz]

Read the thread.
Looked at Stadia “unbelievable” flop.

 

[Kimahri]

It's all relative; most of the world watched film/tv in some way and most of the world did not actually buy it. Huge swaths of that massive market rented or watched TV or went to theaters only.

Almost everyone who games, buys games.. particularly the console market. How many people you know only rent games for their console?

How is this relevant in any way? Renting video games was very common in the 90s. It went away for the same reason renting movies went away, more convenient solutions. Sure, tons of geeks on a board probably wants to own everything they consume, but there's a huge market out there who just could not give a shit about any of that. Including lifelong gamers.

 

[ThatOneGrunt]

Bunch of grandpas on here. Cloud gaming isn’t going to take away your disc drives anytime soon. And games are only getting bigger. Streaming would mean never needing to update or download hundreds of gigabytes a game. The tech will only get better but it has to start somewhere.

Some people here are probably still angry that we ever moved away from cartridges.

 

[losslessFlac]

As far as I see it, Cloud gaming won't be for pushing the technology in games. Sure, they can claim to do GPU renders on servers.
Seems ridiculous to develop a game with graphics so high it can't run on consumer devices natively.
Then how do you develop and test it locally without having a very specced dev PC?
But in practice, it will be for streaming to mobile or tablet devices and increasing the audience for gaming.
I can't picture the demographic for cloud gaming overlapping with those who like solid single player console experiences on Sony/Nintendo
so it can't replace console. Perhaps both console/cloud gaming exist together in the future, but the mobile gamers play higher fidelity games?

 

[IntentionalPun]

How is this relevant in any way? Renting video games was very common in the 90s. It went away for the same reason renting movies went away, more convenient solutions. Sure, tons of geeks on a board probably wants to own everything they consume, but there's a huge market out there who just could not give a shit about any of that. Including lifelong gamers.

See my edit, I'm aware.

 

[Agent X]

Here is my current stance on streaming. The technology is shit, and will always be shit. Stadia has the exact same problems OnLive had 10 years ago. The companies can claim they fixed this or that all they want, they are lying. Because we are talking about the nature of physical reality here. It will always be laggy, it will always have image quality issues, it will always be shit.

You make good points.

There are certain games that work extremely well through streaming. There are certain other games that work extremely poorly through streaming.

The games that are best suited to streaming tend to be turn-based games, or games that don't require precise hair-trigger inputs. Fast-action games that rely on quick and precise inputs (such as fighting games and shoot-em-ups) tend to suffer the most.

On top of that is the push to get so many of these games streaming on mobile phones. Not only do you have to deal with the technical issues that you described, but also the notion of taking a user interface intended for a big screen with PC/console style controls, and tossing it onto a smaller device which primarily uses touch screen controls. Again, there are certain games that are much better suited to this format than others. You could bolt on physical controls to deal with the problems of the touch screen interface, but that is expensive and unwieldy.

So ultimately the question is will people just accept a shitty product because it's more convenient? That is what happened with mp3s after all. Except back then, buying music was really expensive so getting 80% of the experience for 0% of the cost was really attractive for obvious reasons (especially when music was marketed to teens who had little money). But gaming isn't really like that. Gaming is really cheap and convenient these days. Fortnite is a free game, GamePass, Steam sales, etc. What is Luna giving me over GamePass that would make me accept a shitty, laggy, macroblocking video stream over high quality native gameplay?

We'll have to wait and see. Luna could see at least some level of success if they get the right mix of games at the right price.

Some advocates of these streaming services think that all they need to do is sign up a bunch of existing PC/console games, throw them on the service, and then sit back and watch the profits roll in. They believe that this is some quick-and-easy golden ticket to riches for the tech giants.

I remember all of the hype for Stadia, where some people were beating their chests and telling us "They've eliminated the barrier to entry" and "you don't need a console anymore" and how you'd be able to play games by clicking a button on a YouTube video, and so many other wonderful things. Then Stadia actually launched, and a lot of the hyped up features were either removed or dramatically scaled down.

You're also right about online MP3 sales. Music is a non-interactive media format, and the easy and cheap availability of MP3 presented a great convenience factor, with little to no noticeable reduction in quality. We cannot say the same for streaming video games.

 

[Kimahri]

See my edit, I'm aware.

Sure, but I still can't quite agree. I rented quite a few games, and I know people who mainly got to play console games that way. But I don't think game rentals was sustainable, games take longer than a movie, so rental prices would have to go up to ensure it's profitable, but then it's too expensive to be worth it, and you could just as well buy.

But what it was like then isn't really relevant to today. We have kids who basically grow up on f2p games and what kind of ownership do they have towards games? Mostly towards the cosmetic crap they spend all their money on, not the games themselves.

Then we have all the people who game on phones and tablets, a huge market that can only grow with cloud gaming.

I really don't think these people will care at all about ownership.

And frankly, I'm starting to not care too. I've tried Stadia, and the resolution was crap, but boy was it convenient to load of a game and be in the action within seconds.

It's gonna catch onm

 

[Aladin]

Streaming works on same principles as multiplayer games. As they iron out mass data centre hardware, emulation and game code design modifications, it's just few years away from replacing local hardware.

 

[Demon2blades]

Network latency and all you can eat data plans not being a thing yet for the majority of people (so no playing when out and about) amongst other problems will ensure game streaming will take a long long time before it's ready to take traditional console gaming out we are ages from that scenario.

 

[Aladin]

Network latency and all you can eat data plans not being a thing yet for the majority of people (so no playing when out and about) amongst other problems will ensure game streaming will take a long long time before it's ready to take traditional console gaming out we are ages from that scenario.

Latency was never an issue. How would multiplayer games work then ?

 

[spawn]

No, no one cares for Cloud gaming

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

Never say never.

As long as there are data caps and rural areas with terrible internet, it will not.

 

[Demon2blades]

Latency was never an issue. How would multiplayer games work then ?

Would definitely be an issue playing any competitive fps as would lag I can't see where it's improved on those since it's inception .

 

[IbelieveInGenerations]

I would argue that PC and mobile phones are slowly replacing all the devices.

Hardly anyone use PC desktop these days other than "gamers" and some professionals

Vast majority of pople use laptops not design for games but for work/study.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Sure, but I still can't quite agree. I rented quite a few games, and I know people who mainly got to play console games that way. But I don't think game rentals was sustainable, games take longer than a movie, so rental prices would have to go up to ensure it's profitable, but then it's too expensive to be worth it, and you could just as well buy.

Yeah you are totally right that game rental has been a thing a long time, I definitely exaggerated a bit.

 

[lastmessiah]

Hardly anyone use PC desktop these days other than "gamers" and some professionals

Vast majority of pople use laptops not design for games but for work/study.

Laptops are PCs dude.

 

[Veysetia]

Does everyone who uses the internet only live in one of 5 of the world's largest cities and are they all so naive to make posts like this and think everywhere in the world has the highest speed internet? Even the US doesn't have good enough internet infrastructure for this in 99% of locations.

 

[JLB]

As long as there are data caps and rural areas with terrible internet, it will not.

It will not for people with data caps and living on rural areas, thats for sure.

 

[iHaunter]

Cloud is the future of all tech, not just gaming.

I'm working on a design to move all of my companies local Servers and SQL Databases over to Azure. It's going to be the future in everything.

 

[Walter Matthau]

It's here to stay, but the adoption for streaming may take a while. Global internet speeds increase ~25% annually so both data and latency concerns will slowly become a non-issue. Starlink, 5G, and NISP are also beginning to threaten the monopolies some traditional providers have which lead to abusive policies like data caps in some markets.

If you're interested in learning more about internet speeds in your jurisdiction you should check the Speedtest Global Index: https://www.speedtest.net/global-index

 

[BlackM1st]

Of course it's here to stay, but it's never replacing local hardware.

- Blockbuster ceo

 

[DESTROYA]

Bunch of grandpas on here. Cloud gaming isn’t going to take away your disc drives anytime soon. And games are only getting bigger. Streaming would mean never needing to update or download hundreds of gigabytes a game. The tech will only get better but it has to start somewhere.

Some people here are probably still angry that we ever moved away from cartridges.

Until they solve lag and latency it’s a complimentary option not the best or only option. You have to remember not all parts of the US/World have enough infrastructure in place to get a quality streaming experience.
Nothing about being a grandpa about that it’s about living in todays reality.

 

[Kimahri]

Does everyone who uses the internet only live in one of 5 of the world's largest cities and are they all so naive to make posts like this and think everywhere in the world has the highest speed internet? Even the US doesn't have good enough internet infrastructure for this in 99% of locations.

I live 15 minutes by car from the nearest town which is barely 10 000 people and I have high speed internet 150/150.