Nvidia rolls out game streaming on a GTX 1080 cloud for $2.50 an hour

[MarkizSchnitzel]

Worst service ever?
What is their target market, just people on the road who can't live without games for a few days?

 

[SteveGrabowski]

So in order to play Witcher 3 with all DLC's side missions etc, you must pay the equivalent of three GTX 1080s, one GTX 1080ti, a Vega BD, one Ryzen, one Kaby and one week paid vacation in Dubai with three hookers per night.

Good deal.

For me it would be

379 hours * $2.50/hour + $59.99 (game) + $9.99 (Hearts of Stone) + $19.99 (Blood and Wine) = $1037.47

ouch

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Worst service ever?
What is their target market, just people on the road who can't live without games for a few days?

Even then, you're going to be able to stream 1080p 60fps (or even 1080p 30 fps) on your hotel's wireless?

 

[nurturedhate]

Even then, you're going to be able to stream 1080p 60fps (or even 1080p 30 fps) on your hotel's wireless?

I can't tolerate a wireless connection while playing games on my own computer. I can't begin to think about also streaming the game on top of everything. Maybe Nvidia needed to build the infrastructure for this for some other reason and this is just a way to test it and get back some R&D at the same time. We've had services like this before. They failed. They were bad. There has to be another reason for all of this.

 

[Capt Caveman]

You guys are not the target market. If you're a casual gamer, mac owner, etc it may make sense if the latency isn't an issue. I may only play a several hours a week, instead of buying a 1080, I can buy some hours and wait to see til 1080ti and Vega come out.

 

[preslove]

You guys are not the target market. If you're a casual gamer, mac owner, etc it may make sense if the latency isn't an issue. I may only play a several hours a week, instead of buying a 1080, I can buy some hours and wait to see til 1080ti and Vega come out.

You'd be better off just buying a gtx 1050 to hold you over. $110 = 44 hour of this service. A 1050 will get you 30 fps at 1080p for most games.

nvidia is just experimenting with how to market streaming. A monthly bill is the only way it would work, though. Who knows if they can make money charging like that, though.

 

[VirtualLarry]

nvidia is just experimenting with how to market streaming. A monthly bill is the only way it would work, though. Who knows if they can make money charging like that, though.

"NetFlix : Gaming - Brought to you by Nvidia!"

Edit: That said, I think that paying a monthly fee would be alright, if the technical details could be "worked out" (I have my doubts, vis-a-via Latency issues), but paying, in addition to having to "Buy" the game? Total dead-on-arrival service. The casuals aren't going to go for that, and the Enthusiasts, if they have to buy the games, they might as well just buy a GPU and get it done, on their own PCs.

 

[Rifter]

Seriously? Underestimate much? GTX 1080 is >$600 these days. Even the GTX 1060 (6GB) is well above $200...

You are insane if you think the gaming experience offered by this service is going to be comparable to anything more powerful than a several year old mid range GPU, and even that old GPU will be much better due to input lag. The input lag and IQ from streaming it will degrade quality well below what you would get running 1 1060 or 1080 on your own system.

 

[nurturedhate]

You are insane if you think the gaming experience offered by this service is going to be comparable to anything more powerful than a several year old mid range GPU, and even that old GPU will be much better due to input lag. The input lag and IQ from streaming it will degrade quality well below what you would get running 1 1060 or 1080 on your own system.

Exactly, people would be better off buying a used ps3 or 360 and $10 used games than this service. Heck, you can get deals on used ps4's and xb1's for $179-$199 at gamestop. I'd rather play games released prior to 2005 on a bargain basement laptop than deal with the latency this solution introduces.

If the caveat is "I have a terrible/old/cheap/whatever laptop/desktop" then what are the odds they also have a 100mb/s connect? Highly unlikely, that's what. How well is this going to work on a 3mb/s dsl line people, on wireless no less.

 

[bystander36]

"NetFlix : Gaming - Brought to you by Nvidia!"

Edit: That said, I think that paying a monthly fee would be alright, if the technical details could be "worked out" (I have my doubts, vis-a-via Latency issues), but paying, in addition to having to "Buy" the game? Total dead-on-arrival service. The casuals aren't going to go for that, and the Enthusiasts, if they have to buy the games, they might as well just buy a GPU and get it done, on their own PCs.

I don't understand why people think that paying to use hardware over the cloud would mean you get to play games for free. This is them basically renting out GTX 1060's and GTX 1080's over the cloud. You are buying the game as you do any other (you don't have to buy a new copy. You just have to have a legal license agreement already). Legal speaking, I don't even think they could let you play the game for free. They don't own it, and most Publishers do not offer legal ways to allow their games to be bought by a company to then be given free access to it by thousands of people. If they did include game play, they'd have to setup something like those gaming cafe's in Asia, which would be limited to what ever games that allow that type of service.

 

[Bacon1]

I don't understand why people think that paying to use hardware over the cloud would mean you get to play games for free.

Because the huge expense hourly should cover the cost of the games. Just like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or any other video streaming service I can pay monthly for and have lots of content and choose what I want to watch and get it instantly. Oh, and those are way cheaper as well.

Ever heard of renting console games? People do it constantly and I used to use a service that would send me disks in the mail. People want a digital version of that. You don't own the hardware, the game isn't even installed on your machine, only theirs. So why should you pay for the license?

If I went to a LAN center they pay for the games, I just pay for my time playing them.

 

[bystander36]

Because the huge expense hourly should cover the cost of the games. Just like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or any other video streaming service I can pay monthly for and have lots of content and choose what I want to watch and get it instantly. Oh, and those are way cheaper as well.

Ever heard of renting console games? People do it constantly and I used to use a service that would send me disks in the mail. People want a digital version of that. You don't own the hardware, the game isn't even installed on your machine, only theirs. So why should you pay for the license?

If I went to a LAN center they pay for the games, I just pay for my time playing them.

I doubt they can do it legal with existing games. This is a rent a card service, not a gaming service. While this could be profitable or worth it, is besides the point.

 

[zinfamous]

You guys are not the target market. If you're a casual gamer, mac owner, etc it may make sense if the latency isn't an issue. I may only play a several hours a week, instead of buying a 1080, I can buy some hours and wait to see til 1080ti and Vega come out.

But the latency is an issue. How can it not be?

 

[zinfamous]

I doubt they can do it legal with existing games. This is a rent a card service, not a gaming service. While this could be profitable or worth it, is besides the point.

why not? How is game IP licensing different from film and TV studios licensing their IP to services like Netflix or Amazon? Honest question--because I don't know if there is a difference.

Netflix pays a license for non-Netflix content and is allowed to stream that material over a set amount of time. The fees for these licenses are factored into the monthly subscription. the customer isn't buying physical media and is unable to copy and distribute that content, so the IP remains secure in the minds of studios--at least, it's far more secure than those plastic tabs on old VHS tapes you would rent from the local video store

Is it not possible for game studios to sell expensive licenses to a company like nVidia, in order for them to stream access to those games to subscribers?

 

[bystander36]

why not? How is game IP licensing different from film and TV studios licensing their IP to services like Netflix or Amazon? Honest question--because I don't know if there is a difference.

Netflix pays a license for non-Netflix content and is allowed to stream that material over a set amount of time. The fees for these licenses are factored into the monthly subscription. the customer isn't buying physical media and is unable to copy and distribute that content, so the IP remains secure in the minds of studios--at least, it's far more secure than those plastic tabs on old VHS tapes you would rent from the local video store

Is it not possible for game studios to sell expensive licenses to a company like nVidia, in order for them to stream access to those games to subscribers?

The reason why not, is because almost all EUA agreements strictly forbids it. They'd have to create new agreements, and while it could be possible going forward, it wouldn't work for almost all existing games without them going door to door and setting it up.

There is no doubt that in time, agreements will be made, but this is a new service that would require a new line of licensing. To get the ball rolling, and to allow people to play their existing games, this is being sold as a Rent-a-card service. I'd imagine that when a service that includes games is set up, you would be playing games strictly designed for cloud use with supercomputers rendering everything, or at the least, you wouldn't be renting cards, but paying for 30 or 60 FPS and they'll use what ever hardware is required.

 

[BFG10K]

There is a slight possibility that a multi-billion dollar corporation just might have considered this. Yet they still push forward. Perhaps they know, or understand concepts we do not?

Yep, like Intel and Microsoft. Speaking of which, how many billions did they lose chasing the mobile segment? And who can forget Intel's two complete failures at discrete graphics.

 

[adamantine.me]

If it was like $20 per month and you didn't have to own the game, that might be attractive.

That's actually kind of appealing... For playing certain games, there is a large overhead the prohibits many people from playing. Gaming rig with new GPU - 600-1k, the game itself $60, monthly fees, another $120/year... Instead, you could build a budget machine for $500 and sign up for the game just like any other subscription model like Netflix.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Instead, you could build a budget machine for $500 and sign up for the game just like any other subscription model like Netflix.

That makes a lot more sense, to me at least.

And maybe NVidia could build out their servers at most local ISP nodes in a sort of colo-arrangement, like Netflix does, to cut down on the latency issue. (Netflix does it to avoid paying for transit bandwidth.)

 

[Gikaseixas]

That's just straight up robbery
If this is an experiment like some guys stated, they shouldn't charge a cent as this is like beta testing

 

[adamantine.me]

That makes a lot more sense, to me at least.

And maybe NVidia could build out their servers at most local ISP nodes in a sort of colo-arrangement, like Netflix does, to cut down on the latency issue. (Netflix does it to avoid paying for transit bandwidth.)

I mean there are already examples of TV being viewed through VR, it could be a new thing.

 

[PingSpike]

You guys are not the target market. If you're a casual gamer, mac owner, etc it may make sense if the latency isn't an issue. I may only play a several hours a week, instead of buying a 1080, I can buy some hours and wait to see til 1080ti and Vega come out.

Just buy a console. After compression artifacts and latency issues, it'll cost less and look better too.

This is the same argument as before when OnLive came out. "Well, you guys aren't the target market" Who is the target market? Because consoles already fill most of the market that keeps getting suggested and do a better job of it. People that play games for 2 hours a month? That doesn't sound like its going to pay the server upkeep costs to me. The reason nvidia priced this so high is they probably figured they had to to keep from losing their shirt. OnLive didn't even seem like a very good deal when it was running the typical dot bomb business plan of losing money on every sale but making up for it with volume.

Hardware has never been cheaper. The speed of light is a constant. And data caps and shoddy internet are the norm.

The same as before, the only entity this is really a good idea for are publishers. It gives them an unbreakable DRM, removes used game sales entirely and allows them to shut off old games in an effort to push new sales.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Companies need to get off the streaming by subscription idea. I cant even get streaming on a gigabit wired network without some frame drops here and there as well as a bit of lag. I have pretty top end specs. 6700K+32GB DDR4 ram+1080GTX with an intel NIC, and an R7000 Router. It had better be flawless or no deal. I dont want to rent my games or my ability to play said games.

This is a cash grab, they want consistent revenue stream plan and simple.

 

[Murloc]

Companies need to get off the streaming by subscription idea. I cant even get streaming on a gigabit wired network without some frame drops here and there as well as a bit of lag. I have pretty top end specs. 6700K+32GB DDR4 ram+1080GTX with an intel NIC, and an R7000 Router. It had better be flawless or no deal. I dont want to rent my games or my ability to play said games.

This is a cash grab, they want consistent revenue stream plan and simple.

if it's technically impossible, then it will founder.
But if you don't even try, you risk that somebody else takes away your revenue because they took the risk to try new business models.
They have the money and the means to try and learn lessons if it doesn't work, maybe some of those lessons are applicable to making in-house streaming better as well, and that's something much more likely to succeed.

 

[cbn]

Just buy a console. After compression artifacts and latency issues, it'll cost less and look better too.

This is the same argument as before when OnLive came out. "Well, you guys aren't the target market" Who is the target market? Because consoles already fill most of the market that keeps getting suggested and do a better job of it. People that play games for 2 hours a month? That doesn't sound like its going to pay the server upkeep costs to me. The reason nvidia priced this so high is they probably figured they had to to keep from losing their shirt. OnLive didn't even seem like a very good deal when it was running the typical dot bomb business plan of losing money on every sale but making up for it with volume.

Hardware has never been cheaper. The speed of light is a constant. And data caps and shoddy internet are the norm.

The same as before, the only entity this is really a good idea for are publishers. It gives them an unbreakable DRM, removes used game sales entirely and allows them to shut off old games in an effort to push new sales.

I think the target market is someone that wants to game (probably RPGs like Fallout and Deus EX that have cloud saves) while in the car or bus with a lightweight laptop using his smart phone as a tether.

So the person plays most of the Fallout or Deus Ex game at home on his gaming desktop PC.....then resumes (via Steam's cloud save system) while on the road carrying a lightweight notebook rather than a heavy gaming notebook. In fact, with streaming on a lightweight notebook vs. playing on a gaming notebook he probably has much better battery life.

Basically a person that sees streaming games as more desirable way to use mobile data than streaming video.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

if it's technically impossible, then it will founder.
But if you don't even try, you risk that somebody else takes away your revenue because they took the risk to try new business models.
They have the money and the means to try and learn lessons if it doesn't work, maybe some of those lessons are applicable to making in-house streaming better as well, and that's something much more likely to succeed.

Yeah, but the problem is *it's already been tried*. This isn't a new, risky business model that might be a slam dunk or a flop. It's old hat at this point, and it was a flop, it was a flop and a half.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnLive

The lessons are learned, the technology simply does not work in this respect. You cannot make in-house streaming better because the of the laws of physics and universal gaming expectations do not let you. Speaking personally, streaming from a device in my house to another device in my house over *wireless* is unacceptable, over wired it is acceptable (though barely, I doubt I could stand it if my vision was better).