Support NeoGAF

[FunkMiller]

We talk a lot round here about the future of video gaming, the path the industry will go down, and what advancements will drive it.

For me, the two advancements are VR and cloud gaming... but only when they mature and converge.

Right now, VR is imperfect for many reasons. You either have to own an expensive PC or console, as well as an expensive headset for high fidelity VR gaming. Or you own a standalone headset for lower quality gaming.

Cloud gaming is still in its infancy, and requires enough people to have fast, unlimited and stable internet for it to function properly.

So right now, neither thing is a threat to the status quo of home console or PC gaming.

BUT.

At some point, cloud gaming will reach the point of no return, where it starts to become far more widespread, popular, and ubiquitous (especially when 5G actually gets going in a meaningful way). Once enough people have the right internet connection across the world, gaming will be in the cloud.

At that time, a VR headset will be released that only streams games via the cloud. This will be smaller, cheaper and lighter than any other before it, because it won't require anything in it needed to power the actual game. It'll also be truly standalone, and able to play games at the highest level of fidelity (current best example being Half Life Alyx). Have a look at PlutoSphere for the first indicator of what will be coming down the pipe.

That moment is when the video game industry undergoes its biggest change for decades. To me, as someone who enjoys VR gaming now, it feels

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

VR and streaming dont mix. They are on opposing ends of gaming spectrum. If you want to you can start your own company, but there is a reason nobody is even trying to do this.

 

[Stuart360]

I dont think VR will be a big 'anything' in gaming until VR headsets look like this -

 

[lh032]

enough with cloud.

 

[Portugeezer]

 

[Captain Toad]

The next big leap in gaming is when developers actually make AAA VR games and we get more than one every few years.

 

[Klik]

VR is just amazing in racing games like Gran Turismo, Assetto Corsa, Project Cars. I hope GT7 will support full VR

 

[Lethal01]

Nah, it will be when we have near full real time RT with the level of geometric and texture desnity we see in the UE5 demo.

 

[Chukhopops]

Trust me you do not want any form of lag in a VR game, it can make you feel nauseous really quickly.

Depending on the game even a couple frame drops can really fuck up your balance and motion sickness.

Like many ideas, it works on paper but is only useful for porn.

 

[FunkMiller]

VR and streaming dont mix. They are on opposing ends of gaming spectrum. If you want to you can start your own company, but there is a reason nobody is even trying to do this.

Other than Nvidia, you mean?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/design-visualization/solutions/cloud-xr/

And PlutoSphere?

https://uploadvr.com/plutosphere-cloud-pc-vr-streaming/

And Facebook?

https://www.protocol.com/oculus-vr-interview

 

[FunkMiller]

I dont think VR will be a big 'anything' in gaming until VR headsets look like this -

Agreed. And they'll never look anywhere near that slim all the time they have to have a CPU/GPU etc. included in them. But cloud streaming removes all of that.

 

[FunkMiller]

The next big leap in gaming is when developers actually make AAA VR games and we get more than one every few years.

The problem is, developing full scale AAA games for PC VR isn't worth the time or expense as the install base is relatively small. And wireless, standalone VR is nowhere near capable of that kind of game experience. Hence why I think the most practical, profitable and easiest way forward is when cloud gaming is properly viable, with low latency and fast internet speed.

 

[RoadHazard]

Could gaming will always have more latency than local unless you live right next to a datacenter. It's just physics, and it cannot be overcome. Sure, you could maybe do clever predictive things, but this can never account for sudden unexpected movements, and if those lag behind it's gonna feel awful in VR.

 

[Bryank75]

Why do you keep making 'cloud' threads??? They die in 5 minutes every time....just like the services themselves....

Nobody wants it, why do you need cloud when hardware is superior in every way, cheap and usually plentiful and VR is here already too.

 

[Kev Kev]

vr is already the next big thing in my mind. even without the cloud and still requiring bulky headsets, im already on board, as are many others.

but yeah i agree, for everyone else to get on board (mainstream population, vr haters, non gamer types, etc), we need the cloud to stream the games to a smaller pair of glasses instead of these bulky helmets we have now. itll happen. just a matter of time. there are less and less vr haters every day, to the point that i see some of them on GAF who used to bag on vr are now joining in and enjoying it. wont be long till the rest of them get on board or are at least drowned out by supporters.

fuck it, i'll say it... vr is the only exciting thing happening in gaming at the moment. fuck ray tracing, fuck battle passes and seasons and all that bullshit, fuck remakes (looking at you ffvii remake), just give me awesome vr experiences and lets go baby

 

[TonyK]

VR isolate people (it's difficult, even dangerous, to play VR if you are a parent with kids in home, for example) and it causes sickness in a lot of users, me for example. In the eighties VR was my most beloved dream, but now, after several months of use I think it never will reach true mass market like TVs, it's simply too uncomfortable and not enough immersive to compensate its problems.

 

[bender]

They've already converged into two things I don't give a shit about.

 

[kingfey]

People here are not absolutely ready to hear these things. You are always get met, with nonsense arguments, that honestly doesn't make a sense at all.

They are too afraid of the future.

 

[kingfey]

If people can't drive normal cars, there is no way, we would have flying cars. That is too much suicide action.
I dont want some snob flying their cars in my home roof.

 

[kingfey]

Why do you keep making 'cloud' threads??? They die in 5 minutes every time....just like the services themselves....

Nobody wants it, why do you need cloud when hardware is superior in every way, cheap and usually plentiful and VR is here already too.

They are the future. They wont die like you guys wish.

You guys said the same thing about that oblivion Dlc horse. Guess where we are now. A fucking mtx games, which makes billions of money. Gta v survived because of mtx. Ea makes billions of mtx from their sport games yearly.

You just have to accept this now. Cloud gaming will be the future gaming.

 

[Bryank75]

They are the future. They wont die like you guys wish.

You guys said the same thing about that oblivion Dlc horse. Guess where we are now. A fucking mtx games, which makes billions of money. Gta v survived because of mtx. Ea makes billions of mtx from their sport games yearly.

You just have to accept this now. Cloud gaming will be the future gaming.

Every cloud service has died or is dying.... every one of them has failed or is failing.

Don't have to accept anything, there is no consumer appetite for cloud gaming.

Demand dictates if it is viable, you cannot force or coerce consumers to do something they don't want to.

Hardware is more popular than ever, there is more drive behind hardware than any other way of playing.

 

[kingfey]

Every cloud service has died or is dying.... every one of them has failed or is failing.

Don't have to accept anything, there is no consumer appetite for cloud gaming.

Demand dictates if it is viable, you cannot force or coerce consumers to do something they don't want to.

Hardware is more popular than ever, there is more drive behind hardware than any other way of playing.

Then we can use your advice for consoles then.

Cloud gaming is for casuals, who wants to play video games. People who don't want to spend 500$ like you guys. And these guys are the majority of gamers, who are playing fornite, destiny and gtav on their laptop.

Hardware isn't popular. Pc is. China is entirely pc guys. Asian are pc guys. They play shooting games, and mmo.

Consoles are like 250m users.

Here is pc in comparison

And if they happen to be gamers as well, as we are, it becomes that much more functional. Late last year Intel announced that there are over 700 million PC gamers.

Here is a different article about how many gamers are out there.

3 Billion People Worldwide Are Gamers, and Nearly Half Play on PCs - ExtremeTech

A new report claims that 48 percent of all gaming happens on PCs, with a whopping 3.1B gamers worldwide across all platforms, consoles, and mobile devices.

www.extremetech.com

New Report Reveals 48 Per Cent Of Gamers Around The World Play On PC

A new report analysing the popularity of gaming around the world has identified PC gamers as a core demographic in the gaming market.

www.google.com

Console gamers are small. Even some of those console gamers have pc gaming.

 

[Agent X]

At some point, cloud gaming will reach the point of no return, where it starts to become far more widespread, popular, and ubiquitous (especially when 5G actually gets going in a meaningful way). Once enough people have the right internet connection across the world, gaming will be in the cloud.

This might happen at some point in the future, when cloud gaming increases substantially in reliability. See this quote from RoadHazard :

Could gaming will always have more latency than local unless you live right next to a datacenter. It's just physics, and it cannot be overcome. Sure, you could maybe do clever predictive things, but this can never account for sudden unexpected movements, and if those lag behind it's gonna feel awful in VR.

Going back to what FunkMiller was saying, for VR to work through cloud gaming, you'd have to have enough data centers spread out around the world so that every user could be within 50 miles of a game server, and the network would have to be fast and reliable enough so that dropouts and connection errors were practically nonexistent. I predict this is at least 20 to 30 years away.

Before that happens, it could be possible to develop a VR game that uses local processing for rendering, but frequently fetches some updated data about the "game world" through the Internet. There might already be games that do this.

 

[kingfey]

If you still have a doubt about cloud gaming. Here is a video about a gameplay of xcloud using mcdonald wifi.



What would the next excuse be?

 

[Gargauth]

Only small fraction of those casual gamers would go for streaming. They are mostly playing games to waste time on F2P gameso n their phones. Those games on phones are designed just for them. I don't think there's much market for "core" games made accessible via cloud gaming for truly casual gamers. They simply aren't the target audience.

 

[FunkMiller]

Only small fraction of those casual gamers would go for streaming. They are mostly playing games to waste time on F2P gameso n their phones. Those games on phones are designed just for them. I don't think there's much market for "core" games made accessible via cloud gaming for truly casual gamers. They simply aren't the target audience.

Hmmm. Don’t know about that. Minecraft VR. CoD VR. Fortnite VR. GTA VR etc.

All possible on a cheap, small VR headset. There’s a lot of people out there who would be interested. Think a 2020’s equivalent to the Wii.

 

[FunkMiller]

Could gaming will always have more latency than local unless you live right next to a datacenter. It's just physics, and it cannot be overcome. Sure, you could maybe do clever predictive things, but this can never account for sudden unexpected movements, and if those lag behind it's gonna feel awful in VR.

I’d be interested to see a detailed breakdown of latency between PC and Quest 2, via Air Link, and how that compares to potential latency over high speed internet.

I can’t say I ever have an issue with Air Link, and there‘s definitely some latency there. Most people report 40 - 50 ms from the brief search I’ve done.

Whereas the median latency on my fibre connection is 15ms.

 

[Dream-Knife]

You don't really need an expensive PC for VR anymore. Anything that came out after the 970 is good to go.

Any card you buy today is VR ready.

 

[RoadHazard]

I’d be interested to see a detailed breakdown of latency between PC and Quest 2, via Air Link, and how that compares to potential latency over high speed internet.

I can’t say I ever have an issue with Air Link, and there‘s definitely some latency there. Most people report 40 - 50 ms from the brief search I’ve done.

Whereas the median latency on my fibre connection is 15ms.

Latency to what? This all depends on how far you are from a datacenter, what the network latency on the path there is, etc. Basically, it's gonna be VERY difficult to ensure unnoticeable latency wherever you are. Local hardware will never have that problem.

 

[Kuranghi]

Everyones hitting the booze extra hard this weekend.

 

[Abriael_GN]

Imagine thinking that the convergence of two super-small niches will be "the next big leap in gaming."

 

[Agent X]

Hmmm. Don’t know about that. Minecraft VR. CoD VR. Fortnite VR. GTA VR etc.

All possible on a cheap, small VR headset. There’s a lot of people out there who would be interested. Think a 2020’s equivalent to the Wii.

If you're looking at the VR equivalent of the Wii for those types of games, then you can do that on today's headsets. They won't have the graphical flair of high-end games, but the masses probably don't care about that. They do care about having a smooth, consistent experience that isn't prone to network dropouts or interruptions, or fluctuating visual quality due to network bandwidth issues. Those are the problems that currently affect streaming of traditional "flat screen" games.

The VR market and the streaming game market both have their own sets of issues that they need to address, before either of them become mainstream. I don't think we should try to intersect these segments of the market until both of them have their respective issues ironed out. Like I said, this might still be two or three decades away. Let's wait for VR and streaming technologies to improve independently, before we think about trying to combine them.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Next thing will be glasses-free stereoscopic TV combined with Kinect 3.0. Just imagine how immersive it will be, like you’re really an avatar in your game.

 

[StateofMajora]

Damn kids and your rush towards dystopia...

 

[FunkMiller]

Latency to what? This all depends on how far you are from a datacenter, what the network latency on the path there is, etc. Basically, it's gonna be VERY difficult to ensure unnoticeable latency wherever you are. Local hardware will never have that problem.

Okay, but the latency I get from PC to Oculus is there, and never bothers me, so I don’t know. Should be a problem that can be overcome.

 

[FunkMiller]

Like I said, this might still be two or three decades away. Let's wait for VR and streaming technologies to improve independently, before we think about trying to combine them.

I think we’re talking next gen, personally. The streaming but is the issue. The VR bit is pretty much done now.

 

[Shmunter]

DF refuses to cover cloud performance, no ongoing thread here. Seems to me reality has struck.

May change one day, but it ain’t it for now.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Two buzz words in one package? That's some synergies shit right there.

 

[godhandiscen]

Imagine thinking that the convergence of two super-small niches will be "the next big leap in gaming."

I agree with OP. He is pretty much describing Ready Player One. Do you honestly think we will be sitting in front of a screen for the next 100 years? If that happens, something went seriously wrong, nuclear war, famine, dark age, etc.

 

[Droxcy]

vr is already the next big thing in my mind. even without the cloud and still requiring bulky headsets, im already on board, as are many others.

but yeah i agree, for everyone else to get on board (mainstream population, vr haters, non gamer types, etc), we need the cloud to stream the games to a smaller pair of glasses instead of these bulky helmets we have now. itll happen. just a matter of time. there are less and less vr haters every day, to the point that i see some of them on GAF who used to bag on vr are now joining in and enjoying it. wont be long till the rest of them get on board or are at least drowned out by supporters.

fuck it, i'll say it... vr is the only exciting thing happening in gaming at the moment. fuck ray tracing, fuck battle passes and seasons and all that bullshit, fuck remakes (looking at you ffvii remake), just give me awesome vr experiences and lets go baby

Been using VR for the past month shit is insanely fun and every game I play feels surreal. Big highlight for my gaming career honestly.

 

[CrustyBritches]

I’d be interested to see a detailed breakdown of latency between PC and Quest 2, via Air Link, and how that compares to potential latency over high speed internet.

I can’t say I ever have an issue with Air Link, and there‘s definitely some latency there. Most people report 40 - 50 ms from the brief search I’ve done.

Whereas the median latency on my fibre connection is 15ms.

I was getting 36-37ms latency in wireless 120Hz mode on Quest 2 when I last tested it. I've also tried cloud VR gaming using Virtual Desktop from ShadowPC and it works ok.

 

[Tygeezy]

I was getting 36-37ms latency in wireless 120Hz mode on Quest 2 when I last tested it. I've also tried cloud VR gaming using Virtual Desktop from ShadowPC and it works ok.

When fiber becomes more of a thing and Nvidia starts cranking out these data centers it will no doubt be a big thing. A lot of old men yelling at cloud going on in here. There is room for both dedicated hardware and cloud, and people that say vr streaming will never be a thing obviously haven’t tried airlink with oculus quest or shadow pc like you mentioned.

 

[FoundryMusic]

Nearly 30 years since I read this about VR and it's still the same old story. "When this and that and the other happens then VR will take off. Just you wait!"

 

[Fuz]

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

When fiber becomes more of a thing and Nvidia starts cranking out these data centers it will no doubt be a big thing. A lot of old men yelling at cloud going on in here. There is room for both dedicated hardware and cloud, and people that say vr streaming will never be a thing obviously haven’t tried airlink with oculus quest or shadow pc like you mentioned.

VR is about powerful local hardware. Streaming is about not having hardware.

By the time we could have VR streaming, we would have broken speed of light and invented time-travel as a side effect. At that point gaming would be unrecognizable. Streaming is not magic, it is just a computer that you rent somewhere in your neighborhood. Having the computer in your own house is what allows VR to work properly.

 

[Twinguistics]

Been using VR for the past month shit is insanely fun and every game I play feels surreal. Big highlight for my gaming career honestly.

Six months in for me and still feel the same.

Picked up Lone Echo for £8 a few days ago and it's mind-blowing.

 

[Gameplaylover]

Every cloud service has died or is dying.... every one of them has failed or is failing.

Don't have to accept anything, there is no consumer appetite for cloud gaming.

Demand dictates if it is viable, you cannot force or coerce consumers to do something they don't want to.

Hardware is more popular than ever, there is more drive behind hardware than any other way of playing.

Maybe it takes another 10 or 20 years, but streaming is the future and i'm a 100% sure about that. If you would have asked me in the late 90s if i could imagine that pysical pc games would die very soon i would have laughed so hard

 

[reksveks]

Other than Nvidia, you mean?

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/design-visualization/solutions/cloud-xr/

And PlutoSphere?

https://uploadvr.com/plutosphere-cloud-pc-vr-streaming/

And Facebook?

https://www.protocol.com/oculus-vr-interview

Phil Spencer: Quest 2 Offers Best VR Experience, Xbox Software On Headsets Possible

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has once again shot down any hopes for an Xbox VR headset in the near future, but hasn’t ruled out Xbox software appearing on other headsets. Appearing on the latest episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, Spencer said that Microsoft didn’t really have any

uploadvr.com

“As it relates to VR specifically, the best experience that I’ve seen is Quest 2. And I just think its untethered ease of use in its capability just doesn’t to me require it being connected to an Xbox in any way,” Spencer said. “So when I look at a scenario like that, I think of XCloud, I think of the Xbox Live community, I think of other things of how could we bring content to a screen like that.

I am remembering back to the latest Phil Spencer comment on VR. I think if Microsoft ever realise a consumer VR/AR product , it's going to be wireless and definitely have some cloud compute as a key part of it.

 

[FunkMiller]

I was getting 36-37ms latency in wireless 120Hz mode on Quest 2 when I last tested it. I've also tried cloud VR gaming using Virtual Desktop from ShadowPC and it works ok.

And that’s right now. Give it a few years, and…

I think there’s a lot of people in this thread in a bit of denial about the future. Cloud gaming is an inevitability. It will make high end gaming cheaper, more accessible and ubiquitous. There isn’t a games company on earth that doesn’t want all of those things.

And high end VR already exists. The people in here banging on about it remaining a small niche haven’t spent eight hours playing Half Life Alyx. It’s transformative. And that’s a game that’ll seem basic and rudimentary compared to what will come in the next few years.

This whole conversation is going to be very different in five years.

 

[McCheese]

Oculus quest + ShadowPC worked great, played a bunch of games with no perception of lag or delay.

It is indeed the future but it's a long way off, most folks don't have the budget, internet speed or router capable of doing it well.

Sadly ShadowPC shat the bed and went bust and are now pivoting to enterprise, I don't think there is enough demand right now so we are in a chicken and egg situation.