Cloud gaming: are you interested?

[Captain_N]

I will not support game streaming. I dont like spending my hard earned cash on things i cant keep. I dont even subscribe to any streaming services now. I use free sites to watch media. and i download what i want to keep. I will wait till the games are jacked off the servers and it cna be ran on a home server. then ill stream it from my own server.

 

[Kikirini]

Cloud gaming is neat, but as someone who lives in an area where internet/cell service is not even slightly ubiquitous, it will never be useful for me.

 

[froggestspirit]

Maybe if it didn't rely on wifi? Personally, I don't like the idea of subscription based gaming. It might be nice to play games in more places with less hardware, but I would not want to rely on it primarily. Having 500Mbps and my router in the room next to mine, I still experience shortages from time to time. I would have said "I don't like the idea, but it could be helpful", but that would give the companies the impression that they just need to "convince" people like me. I would rather it be over something more stable. Who knows what kind of wireless connections we might have 10-15 years from now.

 

[Tigran]

I can see it useful as a rental service. For example, you can rent Assassin's Creed for 48 hours total playtime for 8 bucks *just pulling shit out of my ass here folks, please don't think I have any actual numbers*. And at the end of the playtime a message pops up and flat out says, "You are out of time, if you'd like you can rent again, or purchase a digital code for PC/Xbox/Sony/Nintendo, for a discounted price and you're save game will transfer over."

IF they did that, I think it could be really useful, as it would give people a chance to actually rent and fully play the game, and the company gets some out of the rental, AND they could sell it to you and you'd get you're copy. *maybe even add a physical option in there.. who knows*.

That way it would be a Win-Win-Win.

Until about 4 days ago, I would have said it wouldn't work, as I live in fuck-all Georgia, but Googles AC beta was actually -very- good, so my old complaints do not appear to be valid anymore. However, I would at least like the option for the Digital Download.

Currently, I do not see it replacing consoles directly, as there is still a visual quality drop, and I don't expect 4k to be a thing anytime too soon. *of course I could be wrong*. However it may be a way to bridge the generational gap.

 

[Song of storms]

I can see it happening. Definitely a good thing for budget phones/consoles. Imagine a PSTV2 that costs one tenth of a PS4 but can still play games thanks to the cloud. Maybe it's also the time we will see and end of having upgraded consoles and just have one PlayStation every 10 years that can play all games in Cloud at 4K. That would need a hell of a fiber, but I see it can be a reality in a decade or so.

 

[Yepi69]

I've been trying the beta of Geforce Now, so far so good. Connection is really speedy (I did a speedtest within a browser on the streamer's machine, download speed was 1254.33 Mbps and Upload speed was 796.23 Mbps, so they know what they're doing) and I was able to play some Steam games that I owned at 1080p60 no problem with little to no input lag what so ever, tho that really depends on your connection.

 

[cvskid]

Would rather have another video game crash like back in 1983 than to have cloud gaming as the norm.

 

[Argonitious]

Ok... so there are three problems with this concept, which is why I think it will only be useful for a (relatively speaking) small number of people.

• Latency.
• Compression. (Sorry, real time video compression usually just burns my eyes.)
• Bandwidth. (If you aren't fortunate enough to live in Europe or one of the few US cities with decent ISPs, you will bog down your connection just by attempting to stream games or videos.)

I know bandwidth is not a major issue for everyone, but it is still a major problem for a number of people. I have personally experienced slow bandwidth and constantly dropped connections for the last 10 years. Just playing an online game like Splatoon 2 is sometimes a nightmare on a day when the connection drops a lot. I don't even want to think about how terrible things would be if I tried to stream a game!

 

[huntertron1]

just stream the files and make sure you have the cpu and gpu. ive tested this with my own server in the living room. the only thing is loading times. then it should be only slow, but if it constantly loads (depending on how much it does it) it will load really slow. the games that i tested so far was sonic heroes, and pony island. sadly my server only has 40 GB of storage due to it being a old dino. i think the next games i will test will be portal 2, sonic mania, and just shapes and beats.

 

[Pokepicker]

I'm sure cloud gaming would be an awesome experience with my internet connection.
Depending on the alignment of the stars, and the time of high tide I can have 0,45 Mbit/s download, with a snappy 630ms response time.

Maybe if it was a cloud based Chess game.

 

[the_randomizer]

Not being able to physically or digitally keep the games on an HDD or on NAND, no thank you. What's the point in paying for a game you don't own in one form or another? If I wanted to stream a game, I'd watch let's play videos on YouTube.

 

[Frankbel]

For casual gamers or casual gamimg, streaming is fine, but for gamers Console or PC are necessary.
The problem is that casual gaming market is as big as the non-casual one.

 

[the_randomizer]

Cloud gaming is just a lazy developer's excuse to not put forth any conceited effort into a game just to make money.

 

[FAST6191]

Cloud gaming is just a lazy developer's excuse to not put forth any conceited effort into a game just to make money.

I don't doubt the thought of paying by the hour (possibly up front and possible with a subscription) and never being able to resell or lend while not having to do downloads or discs/carts has various greedy bastards having to go change their underwear, however I don't see how it is going to allow them to get away with not putting in the effort in the broad strokes. About all it might allow is for them to not have to optimise as hard or have to get truly down and dirty with network code to deal with crappy consumer ADSL when it is effectively just a LAN game.

 

[the_randomizer]

I don't doubt the thought of paying by the hour (possibly up front and possible with a subscription) and never being able to resell or lend while not having to do downloads or discs/carts has various greedy bastards having to go change their underwear, however I don't see how it is going to allow them to get away with not putting in the effort in the broad strokes. About all it might allow is for them to not have to optimise as hard or have to get truly down and dirty with network code to deal with crappy consumer ADSL when it is effectively just a LAN game.

I just don't see the appeal, not to mention the garbage internet infrastructure we have here in the US doesn't make it viable.

 

[Deleted User]

Nope nope nope and nope. I'd never even consider using a cloud gaming service. Look at Resident Evil 7 on the Switch. Classic case of taking the piss. A single player game you need to own a license.... and pay hourly for it? If I was running a company and came to me with that idea, they'd be fired on the fucking spot for being such a retard, then I'd fire the person who hired them on behalf of my company.

 

[SonicRings]

Any subscription-based service will end up costing more than simply owning said service after a set period of time. Gaming included: after a few years you'd have spent the equivalent of a console. After this point you'll only be spending more and more, making cloud-based gaming cost more than simply owning the hardware.

 

[ZachSZ]

I used to completely reject it until I tried a Steam Link. I know Steam Link is completely controlled by the user's network and not streamed from a cloud server, but it wasn't until the Steam Link that I experienced the great potential that cloud gaming could be one day.

That said, while I've played through many games over my Steam Link and had a blast, any other streaming service like PS Now and Project Stream have had bad latency. Until they can solve the latency issue, all continue to pass on it.

 

[aykay55]

It will never become mainstream, people just don't have the WiFi speeds. However, it will grow into its own industry. Services like Rainway will be replicated by third parties and companies like Microsoft, Sony, and maybe even Nintendo, and they will allow you to pick up the game you were playing on your console/PC and continue it on your phone and play it anywhere with a WiFi connection, but streaming will never replace local storage.

 

[FAST6191]

It will never become mainstream, people just don't have the WiFi speeds. However, it will grow into its own industry. Services like Rainway will be replicated by third parties and companies like Microsoft, Sony, and maybe even Nintendo, and they will allow you to pick up the game you were playing on your console/PC and continue it on your phone and play it anywhere with a WiFi connection, but streaming will never replace local storage.

People seem OK streaming fairly high resolution video and while it has not out and out killed physical media yet it is very much a mainstream thing. Speeds are also only going one way and if they do start sticking server farms in or next to internet exchanges or cabinets...
Defining the rural population is tricky ( https://www.hrsa.gov/rural-health/about-us/definition/index.html ) but probably going to be around 20% and is only dropping as time goes on (not to mention even they are getting better speeds).

It will be a sad day if it does come to pass that I can not have a copy of a game to play by myself in 20 years time if I felt so inclined.