Nvidia poised to change gaming with cloud graphics chips

[Foxi4]

TDWP hit the nail right on the head, it is, and should remain, a cost-effective option, definitely not the default method of distribution in the future.

 

[exangel]

I've never had many server issues with OnLive, and not every cloud gaming service goes by subscription (OnLive has an optional subscription but you can use it without as well).

I mean right now it's a minority but as the internet develops in the next 10-20 years, I could definitely see it becoming a popular mode of gaming. I mean you don't have to worry about paying above $200 for a console, companies don't have to worry about piracy, and its just accessible to a larger audience.

Exactly, I've never paid for anything except Bastion on OnLive though I've been a member since beta. There's more pros to it than people are really giving credit for, and the further development of internet infrastructure is going to take out a lot of the accessibility problems even 5 years from now.

I'm pretty new to PSN but being able to play demos has definitely increased my personal spending on games, I've used OnLive to demo a few games - especially because I don't have to download anything extra..

Nothing that's available on OnLive isn't available in a "permanent license" retail form, but of course, the service isn't for everyone and most people aren't willing to buy games twice.

The "if's" that I've mentioned previously in the thread -- "if I could have optional cloud service for something I already own or even pay a fee for it, I would jump right on board" these are things those people who are investing in running Cloud are surely already working on..

One huge problem for OnLive and its competition, is arranging for the kind of partnerships with publishers as Steam has, and right now they are sorely hurting in the selection department if compared directly with Steam.

On another note, cloud access completely eliminates piracy. This is why publishers who contract with OnLive put up with the 40% cut OnLive takes.

Then publishers are morons. They are trading one form of piracy which is people illegally downloading their games and maybe costing them 10-15% of profits. vs The corprate piracy that is taking 40% of their profits and claiming it will stop piracy.

If you can explain to me from a serious, thought-out economics standpoint, why a profit reduction that assures real sales makes publishers morons, I'd like to hear it. Steam reduces the prices of the games in major sales all the time which has been demonstrated to increase overall profits, and this isn't "corporate" piracy. Is it?

 

[Foxi4]

The idea of the cloud is accessability, but when you think about it for a moment, it's less accessible.
Low reception? No game. Restricted access due to location of connection? No game. No Wi-Fi in range? No game. Server down? No game. Forgot to pay your subscription in time? No game.

The same is true for every online/cable service. They depend on you being connected, in front of your PC/TV, monthly subscription, servers working, all sorts of restrictions and downsides one could point out.

Take streaming video for example. Netflix or whatnot (we don't get Netflix 'round these parts so I'm not sure what it does but to my knowledge it's some sort of glorified Youtube with arguably better content). Low reception? No movies. Restricted access due to location of connection? No movies. No Wi-Fi in range? No movies. Server down? No movies. Forgot to pay your subscription in time? No movies. And yet, video-on-demand is pretty successful.

Settle down and drink your prune juice, grampa.

When you like a movie to the extent that you'd like to watch it again, you buy it. If you like a song, you buy it, or at least you're supposed to. Argument void and null, you don't pay a VoD fee twice unless you're dumb.

 

[chartube12]

Are these chips like giant in size? Wouldn't it make cents to put this tech in consumer graphic cards?

3rd, This sounds like technology that should be used in MMO servers. The more people capable of playing your MMOs the more money you'll possibly be making in the end.

 

[Veho]

When you like a movie to the extent that you'd like to watch it again, you buy it. If you like a song, you buy it, or at least you're supposed to. Argument void and null, you don't pay a VoD fee twice unless you're dumb.

Like I said, I don't know how Netflix works. I thought you could rewatch movies.

So anyway, accessibility isn't the problem, it's the business model? You don't have to pay every time you play, you can either rent the game for a few days, or buy unlimited access to the game (for a little less than the game's retail price), with unlimited replays. Making it similar to Steam.

 

[Foxi4]

When you like a movie to the extent that you'd like to watch it again, you buy it. If you like a song, you buy it, or at least you're supposed to. Argument void and null, you don't pay a VoD fee twice unless you're dumb.

Like I said, I don't know how Netflix works. I thought you could rewatch movies.

So anyway, accessibility isn't the problem, it's the business model? You don't have to pay every time you play, you can either rent the game for a few days, or buy unlimited access to the game (for a little less than the game's retail price), with unlimited replays. Making it similar to Steam.

Oh, of course, I know that. My point is that services like this simply don't last forever and when they close down you simply lose all your "stuff" so to speak.

I see this kind of thing as beneficial for those who either don't collect games or can't afford good gaming rigs/consoles, I'm just saying that I personally don't like it.

 

[air2004]

I've never had many server issues with OnLive, and not every cloud gaming service goes by subscription (OnLive has an optional subscription but you can use it without as well).

I mean right now it's a minority but as the internet develops in the next 10-20 years, I could definitely see it becoming a popular mode of gaming. I mean you don't have to worry about paying above $200 for a console, companies don't have to worry about piracy, and its just accessible to a larger audience.

Exactly, I've never paid for anything except Bastion on OnLive though I've been a member since beta. There's more pros to it than people are really giving credit for, and the further development of internet infrastructure is going to take out a lot of the accessibility problems even 5 years from now.

I'm pretty new to PSN but being able to play demos has definitely increased my personal spending on games, I've used OnLive to demo a few games - especially because I don't have to download anything extra..

Nothing that's available on OnLive isn't available in a "permanent license" retail form, but of course, the service isn't for everyone and most people aren't willing to buy games twice.

The "if's" that I've mentioned previously in the thread -- "if I could have optional cloud service for something I already own or even pay a fee for it, I would jump right on board" these are things those people who are investing in running Cloud are surely already working on..

One huge problem for OnLive and its competition, is arranging for the kind of partnerships with publishers as Steam has, and right now they are sorely hurting in the selection department if compared directly with Steam.

On another note, cloud access completely eliminates piracy. This is why publishers who contract with OnLive put up with the 40% cut OnLive takes.

Then publishers are morons. They are trading one form of piracy which is people illegally downloading their games and maybe costing them 10-15% of profits. vs The corprate piracy that is taking 40% of their profits and claiming it will stop piracy.

If you can explain to me from a serious, thought-out economics standpoint, why a profit reduction that assures real sales makes publishers morons, I'd like to hear it. Steam reduces the prices of the games in major sales all the time which has been demonstrated to increase overall profits, and this isn't "corporate" piracy. Is it?

http://www.freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy/
No one can give a definitive number on what piracy costs the industry. So , my idea of 10-15% maybe overstated. Now with onlive taking a 40% cut , we have a definitive number (and in my opinion , that would be piracy). By them taking 40% the publisher must increase the price so said publisher can make more money to recoup what they spent and to make share holders happy with the profit margin.
The reason no one knows what piracy costs the industry is because no one really knows what should be counted as piracy.
For example , would you buy a game like Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles even after it got bad reviews ? Maybe not. But you might download it , to see what its like . Does that mean that the industry lost money because you just downloaded it ? I would say no.
Lets even assume for a moment you might be inclined to buy it , but ,there is a game that will be comming out a week later that you really , really want and your short on cash . So you decide to rent the first game and to your horror you find out it sucks and are glad you didn't buy it. But you decide that you will download it if given the chance . Did the industry lose money here ? I would say no. But because you did download it , a few industries did make money from it , even though the publisher technically didn't lose money from you (because remember you never would have bought it anyway). The industries that made money. Your ISP , your computer manufacturer , the website you downloaded it from , the dvd media your gonna burn it to or hard drive your gonna add it to , the console manufacturer your gonna play it on , and most importantly the government, because and all those companys are gonna pay taxes on these things. So a none existent sale for one entity, produced revenue to a lot of others.

So to keep it simple , just because someone downloads something without paying for it, it doesn't necessarily translate into lost revenue for a another , I would say quite the contrary.
Now there are some that would download a game that they really want without paying for it ,and would buy it if that was their only choice. But I don't think they represent 40% of the people doing , and if I'm correct , then it is corprate piracy.

 

[FireGrey]

with cloud gaming you pretty much download the game multiple times.
It would be much more practical to download it just once...

 

[AlanJohn]

"Sorry, but you cannot access your game since the servers are currently down for maintenance"
The future seems like hell to me.

 

[FireGrey]

"Sorry, but you cannot access your game since the servers are currently down for maintenance"
The future seems like hell to me.

We need to go to cartridge based games again.
That way they wont sound like a drill or can only be played when online.

 

[air2004]

I miss the cartridge. Blowing on it , snapping it in , and using newspaper or a magazine to hold it down. Those were the days.

 

[exangel]

On another note, cloud access completely eliminates piracy. This is why publishers who contract with OnLive put up with the 40% cut OnLive takes.

Then publishers are morons. They are trading one form of piracy which is people illegally downloading their games and maybe costing them 10-15% of profits. vs The corprate piracy that is taking 40% of their profits and claiming it will stop piracy.

If you can explain to me from a serious, thought-out economics standpoint, why a profit reduction that assures real sales makes publishers morons, I'd like to hear it. Steam reduces the prices of the games in major sales all the time which has been demonstrated to increase overall profits, and this isn't "corporate" piracy. Is it?

http://www.freakonom...he-u-s-economy/
No one can give a definitive number on what piracy costs the industry. So , my idea of 10-15% maybe overstated. Now with onlive taking a 40% cut , we have a definitive number (and in my opinion , that would be piracy). By them taking 40% the publisher must increase the price so said publisher can make more money to recoup what they spent and to make share holders happy with the profit margin.

The reason no one knows what piracy costs the industry is because no one really knows what should be counted as piracy.
For example , would you buy a game like Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles even after it got bad reviews ? Maybe not. But you might download it , to see what its like . Does that mean that the industry lost money because you just downloaded it ? I would say no.

Lets even assume for a moment you might be inclined to buy [a poorly reviewed game], but, there is a game that will be comming out a week later that you really , really want and your short on cash . So you decide to rent the first game and to your horror you find out it sucks and are glad you didn't buy it. But you decide that you will download it if given the chance. Did the industry lose money here ? I would say no. But because you did download it , a few industries did make money from it , even though the publisher technically didn't lose money from you (because remember you never would have bought it anyway). The industries that made money. Your ISP , your computer manufacturer , the website you downloaded it from , the dvd media your gonna burn it to or hard drive your gonna add it to , the console manufacturer your gonna play it on , and most importantly the government, because and all those companys are gonna pay taxes on these things. So a none existent sale for one entity, produced revenue to a lot of others.

So to keep it simple , just because someone downloads something without paying for it, it doesn't necessarily translate into lost revenue for a another , I would say quite the contrary.
Now there are some that would download a game that they really want without paying for it ,and would buy it if that was their only choice. But I don't think they represent 40% of the people doing , and if I'm correct , then it is corprate piracy.

Your statement completely ignores the willingness of publishers to agree with Valve/Steam on massive discounts to increase their sales. This is a variable number rather than the fixed number that I only quoted from an OnLive fan blog (which seemed legit but I can't recall if it was sourced).. for Steam, so many different publishers make varying degrees of discount agreement for those promotional sales which undeniably sells games that people otherwise wouldn't have bought.

It also doesn't draw an appropriate argument whatsoever as to how a publisher making a choice on profit reduction to get further distribution of their game to the masses makes them morons. All you said was to support the idea that publishers "lose" less to piracy, and it appears you argue that this supposedly helps the overall economy in a way that using Cloud service doesn't? Does this mean that publishers would be more intelligent (not morons) to hang on to only retail and Steam or Steam-like services such as Origin/Desura, in addition to piracy, for distribution?

Most importantly, in response to your "piracy costs the publisher nothing if someone wouldn't have bought the game otherwise" argument, OnLive offers unlimited 30 minute demos of everything in their library, the caveat being that you can't save your game unless you either pay a rental license or purchase the full pass. Steam only offers a small proportion of demos to their product library, and you certainly haven't made any suggestion that Steam is also committing "corporate piracy". Steam often arranges discounts of as much as 66 or even 75% on indie and even major titles, but rotates those discounts strategically to increase the variety of games their customers buy. I'm not the best at math, but if a major title is going at even 50% off, neither Steam nor the publisher is going to be getting as much profit per sale as the publisher would be getting from distribution via OnLive at full price. OnLive occasionally has promotional sales but nowhere near the amount that Steam does yet. For what it's worth, OnLive also has their subscription service which gives unfettered access to large portion of the titles in their library, and the profits from that give some ongoing revenue to the publishers who agree to include their titles.

But since "corporate piracy" is really just a loose term which is either interpreted semi-literally or by your own definition, you're free to avoid being realistic about what makes sense to a publisher seeking greater product distribution for profits.

 

[air2004]

I've never had many server issues with OnLive, and not every cloud gaming service goes by subscription (OnLive has an optional subscription but you can use it without as well).

I mean right now it's a minority but as the internet develops in the next 10-20 years, I could definitely see it becoming a popular mode of gaming. I mean you don't have to worry about paying above $200 for a console, companies don't have to worry about piracy, and its just accessible to a larger audience.

Exactly, I've never paid for anything except Bastion on OnLive though I've been a member since beta. There's more pros to it than people are really giving credit for, and the further development of internet infrastructure is going to take out a lot of the accessibility problems even 5 years from now.

I'm pretty new to PSN but being able to play demos has definitely increased my personal spending on games, I've used OnLive to demo a few games - especially because I don't have to download anything extra..

Nothing that's available on OnLive isn't available in a "permanent license" retail form, but of course, the service isn't for everyone and most people aren't willing to buy games twice.

The "if's" that I've mentioned previously in the thread -- "if I could have optional cloud service for something I already own or even pay a fee for it, I would jump right on board" these are things those people who are investing in running Cloud are surely already working on..

One huge problem for OnLive and its competition, is arranging for the kind of partnerships with publishers as Steam has, and right now they are sorely hurting in the selection department if compared directly with Steam.

On another note, cloud access completely eliminates piracy. This is why publishers who contract with OnLive put up with the 40% cut OnLive takes.

Then publishers are morons. They are trading one form of piracy which is people illegally downloading their games and maybe costing them 10-15% of profits. vs The corprate piracy that is taking 40% of their profits and claiming it will stop piracy.

If you can explain to me from a serious, thought-out economics standpoint, why a profit reduction that assures real sales makes publishers morons, I'd like to hear it. Steam reduces the prices of the games in major sales all the time which has been demonstrated to increase overall profits, and this isn't "corporate" piracy. Is it?

15% loss of profit due to possible piracy vs 40% loss due to someone else selling it for you. I'm sure you know how the math would work out . As for steam , anything they reduce the price by will only cut into steams profits. What I'm saying is , if onlive is taking a 40% cut for itself than is insane , and I would think that onlive is telling these publishers , " hey look at us , we are stoping piracy and helping you make money so give us a 40% cut " .
Yes , I know the publisher doesn't have to agree to this . But I'm sure the publisher would make more money via traditional distribution methods , or hell , even setting up and doing the distibution it self via the internet

 

[Janthran]

I hope Nvidia fails because they suck.

 

[exangel]

15% loss of profit due to possible piracy vs 40% loss due to someone else selling it for you. I'm sure you know how the math would work out . As for steam , anything they reduce the price by will only cut into steams profits. What I'm saying is , if onlive is taking a 40% cut for itself than is insane , and I would think that onlive is telling these publishers , " hey look at us , we are stoping piracy and helping you make money so give us a 40% cut " .
Yes , I know the publisher doesn't have to agree to this . But I'm sure the publisher would make more money via traditional distribution methods , or hell , even setting up and doing the distibution it self via the internet

I do understand the math of 15% lost SALES vs. 40% loss of guaranteed profit.

Please show me how reducing the cost of a games' license WAY below wholesale (i.e. what stores pay for retail packaged games) only eats into Steam's profits. Does Steam pay the difference to the publisher? How can Steam stay in business if they are paying the difference on every sale when they sell heaps of copies during a 33% to 66% off sale? I'm honestly curious if this is true since you believe it enough to argue it.

I also don't see a company like Blizzard or Bethesda competing with GameStop directly. Publishers aren't often in the distribution (point-of-sale) business, taking a hit for distribution cost happens to every major player that's featured in OnLive's library. Companies that self distribute like EA Games and Valve still have to distribute physical games which costs them more than digital distribution.

Apple takes a 30% cut for products in their App store, but doesn't offer cloud service (yet...) the way that OnLive does. Is this still insanity? Reaching major distribution is really important in the business.

If you make Minecraft an example, which is only self-distributed, and the only game I can think of that would really do a perfect job (of avoiding profit loss) the way you're describing on the PC platform... that's a one in a million success.

 

[DarkStriker]

I actually wouldnt mind dedicated cloud consoles, or in fact cloud computer gaming. The biggest 2 turn off that stops me from ever touching it in my life is:
1 and the most troublesome: Internet. One day you forget to pay for it, ur off for no gaming at ALL. Not to mention sometimes its unereliable and turns off on you for a hour or two. Great... What to do now? Play offline games? Oh right! It just needs the godly internet!
2. It will cost more.. Alot more for a few of us including me. I use a ISP that focus on download speed only! And by that i have a whooping 11.42Mbps(Not that much). But guess what? Because its focus is download speed i only have 0.55 Mbps upload speed! YES 0.55... Cloud gaming requires upload speed and with that 0.55 Mbps i would basically shut down(or slow down. Anything that requires more than 3 seconds to load really) internet surfing for everyone in the house the moment i plug in and play using cloud gaming. So bye bye cloud gaming.

 

[Clydefrosch]

My physical machine for gaming will always be better than cloud gaming.

how do you know this? once they get rid of the latency problems, your machine will not be able to keep up with cloud computers.
also, im all for this, as i dont have the resources for a high end machine.

 

[air2004]

The cloud would will only be as good as , your isp , your electric supplier and your memory.
Your ISP because of possible bandwith caps.
Your electric supplier because of possible brown outs or black outs.
Your memory because you might for get to pay the bill.

I prefer the one and done model .
Thats where I pay for the game and console only one time and then get to play it forever.

Now if the cloud ever becomes a free service than it might be worth it , but then the games would have to be free as well.
Other wise , its a waste of money.

 

[DigitalDeviant]

My physical machine for gaming will always be better than cloud gaming.

how do you know this? once they get rid of the latency problems, your machine will not be able to keep up with cloud computers.
also, im all for this, as i dont have the resources for a high end machine.

I disagree, cloud gaming takes even more power away from the consumer and puts it into the hands of business that want to squeeze as much money from you and I as possible.