Wow, cloud gaming (Google's Stadia) is going to disrupt the vid gaming industry, wut

[Zeze]

Damn, y'all seein' that cloud computing disrupting gaming industry? Google just announced release date & pricing for Stadia - playing state of the art games via streaming (instead of owning a console on your end). It looks like their backend does all the graphical computing like AWS EC2 and streams the video to you.

This has its latency issues, but it'll only get better.

The craziest kicker is the insane pricing. The 1080p streaming is FREE to everyone (just 'buy' game).

 

[Red Squirrel]

I absolutely hate that everything seems to be moving to cloud/subscription based and everybody just embraces it. It is the start of the end of being able to own things. I miss the old consoles like the Nintendo where everything is 100% local. You buy a game, you own it forever. That's how it should work. Even lot of software is going subscription/cloud based now.

I rather pay for something once, and then own it forever and not have it rely on some 3rd party server for it to work.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Will be interesting to see how that works with people with low bandwidth and data caps.

 

[Zeze]

I absolutely hate that everything seems to be moving to cloud/subscription based and everybody just embraces it. It is the start of the end of being able to own things. I miss the old consoles like the Nintendo where everything is 100% local. You buy a game, you own it forever. That's how it should work. Even lot of software is going subscription/cloud based now.

I rather pay for something once, and then own it forever and not have it rely on some 3rd party server for it to work.

It's a trade off I guess.

I grew up gaming and I get you about owning. But today, I frankly don't give a fack. The upsides are way too good.

 

[sandorski]

Google has built the Ultimate Gaming PC.

 

[nakedfrog]

I absolutely hate that everything seems to be moving to cloud/subscription based and everybody just embraces it. It is the start of the end of being able to own things. I miss the old consoles like the Nintendo where everything is 100% local. You buy a game, you own it forever. That's how it should work. Even lot of software is going subscription/cloud based now.

I rather pay for something once, and then own it forever and not have it rely on some 3rd party server for it to work.

Not everybody, plenty of folks like me still buying physical copies of games (for consoles, anyway, harder to do for PC), CDs and/or vinyl albums, paper books...

 

[dank69]

I absolutely hate that everything seems to be moving to cloud/subscription based and everybody just embraces it. It is the start of the end of being able to own things. I miss the old consoles like the Nintendo where everything is 100% local. You buy a game, you own it forever. That's how it should work. Even lot of software is going subscription/cloud based now.

I rather pay for something once, and then own it forever and not have it rely on some 3rd party server for it to work.

I also like lots of clutter collecting dust.

 

[Fenixgoon]

just remember that google loves cancelling projects

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Still not seeing how this will work. Input latency is untenable with my steam link over wireless, much less having to travel multi-ms to some datacenter miles away at best. Pretty sure it'd drive me crazy just playing strategy games and such, much less anything that required actual coordination.

Also, yes, datacaps will ah heck this pretty quickly. I can also only imagine how chewed up the image quality will be from compression, assuming they compress it. If they don't, those datacaps will be hit even faster.

 

[Red Squirrel]

just remember that google loves cancelling projects

LOL true. Wait for enough people to invest time and money into it, then it will be phased out.

Or it might be like G+, where only about 7 people use it.

 

[clamum]

I think it looks pretty promising but keep in mind you'll need a very fast connection to be able to play in high quality. Also there's a latency issue that I've heard is not very good at this point. Obviously that'll get better, but at this point is sounds pretty crappy.

 

[JEDI]

Damn, y'all seein' that cloud computing disrupting gaming industry? Google just announced release date & pricing for Stadia - playing state of the art games via streaming (instead of owning a console on your end). It looks like their backend does all the graphical computing like AWS EC2 and streams the video to you.

This has its latency issues, but it'll only get better.

The craziest kicker is the insane pricing. The 1080p streaming is FREE to everyone (just 'buy' game).

wow.. so no more needing to upgrade to Paystation 6, or xbox720, or Nintendo Switch2?

on the other hand, I have to buy games on Stadia

 

[ImpulsE69]

My only experience was beta testing the PS3 streaming. It was 'okay' for average gaming, but the major downsides are as mentioned:

1. Latency makes multiplayer gaming make you want to break your monitor.
2. When your/their network has a hiccup the screen becomes pixellated which makes most games unplayable - especially during anything remotely action oriented (my experience was during boss fights...)

Basically if it is timing/action based gaming, for the masses it will suck
If it is turn based, casual it isn't bad at all just occasional hiccups.

Ultimately maybe on a smaller scale in very populous areas with great internet speeds and no caps and low latency it might be awesome, for everyone else it will be average at best.

It isn't the same as watching Netflix, and I think some people forget that.

That being said, technology advances all the time so who knows...

 

[nakedfrog]

Still not seeing how this will work. Input latency is untenable with my steam link over wireless, much less having to travel multi-ms to some datacenter miles away at best. Pretty sure it'd drive me crazy just playing strategy games and such, much less anything that required actual coordination.

Also, yes, datacaps will ah heck this pretty quickly. I can also only imagine how chewed up the image quality will be from compression, assuming they compress it. If they don't, those datacaps will be hit even faster.

I still don't understand why that word filter is a thing, but it does make me chuckle.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Also there's a latency issue that I've heard is not very good at this point. Obviously that'll get better, but at this point is sounds pretty crappy.

How is this supposed to happen? I've asked several people this and I just get shrugs and 'google can afford/manage it' or some such nonsense. There's limitations of physics preventing this from working in a way that people won't notice/won't impact gameplay.

I still don't understand why that word filter is a thing, but it does make me chuckle.

Yeah that's weird, wasn't even some lurid word, unless you're English I guess?

 

[RPD]

Competitive gaming pretty much won't happen on such a platform for a long ass time due to latency.

Also hard pass for me, I'll stick to buying physical copies of stuff for as long as I can as well.

 

[Rifter]

I absolutely hate that everything seems to be moving to cloud/subscription based and everybody just embraces it. It is the start of the end of being able to own things. I miss the old consoles like the Nintendo where everything is 100% local. You buy a game, you own it forever. That's how it should work. Even lot of software is going subscription/cloud based now.

I rather pay for something once, and then own it forever and not have it rely on some 3rd party server for it to work.

This guy gets it!

 

[BudAshes]

just remember that google loves cancelling projects

 

[ultimatebob]

I'm expecting this gaming experience to suck over a typical WiFi connection.

Maybe it will be better when we all have gigabit fiber Internet access in our homes with a next gen gigabit WiFi access point to match, but we aren't there yet. In rural areas, we aren't even close.

 

[pete6032]

Just like Nexus phones were going to disrupt the mobile phone industry.

 

[zinfamous]

Yeah, will definitely have to see how this handles latency issues, that have up until now been pretty terrible in any platform. There are some great demos out there, though, of some compression software showing some really impressive streaming of AAA games though (I think AC Odyssey was an initial release for one of those companies?).

I mean, if it works, great, but it needs to work. Also not sure if I like the lack of ownership. Will have to see I guess.

 

[ultimatebob]

Just like Nexus phones were going to disrupt the mobile phone industry.

Or how Google+ was going to revolutionize social media?

 

[Printer Bandit]

stadia

: a surveying method for determination of distances and differences of elevation by means of a telescopic instrument having two horizontal lines through which the marks on a graduated rod are observed

also : the instrument or rod

 

[trungma]

I absolutely hate that everything seems to be moving to cloud/subscription based and everybody just embraces it. It is the start of the end of being able to own things. I miss the old consoles like the Nintendo where everything is 100% local. You buy a game, you own it forever. That's how it should work. Even lot of software is going subscription/cloud based now.

I rather pay for something once, and then own it forever and not have it rely on some 3rd party server for it to work.

I love owning equipment too but given how stagnant Intel and Nvidia have been (not evening counting the price gouging), I am OK with this.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Competitive gaming pretty much won't happen on such a platform for a long ass time due to latency.

Also hard pass for me, I'll stick to buying physical copies of stuff for as long as I can as well.

There are people that play stuff like Fortnite and PUBG on phones over cellular connections right now, so I don't think competitive gaming would be that big of an issue. In fact, I think e-Sports is potentially one of the big uses for this, as they'll be able to control the game from their side even more as an anti-cheat solution. Competitive gamers are likely going to have good internet already. This would also cut the costs of playing e-sports even more (meaning less need for sponsorship to pay for gaming PCs and the like - even though esports games usually don't need high end stuff, many still have that just to get the absolute max framerates and best monitors, etc).

Its not for me either, but this is an inevitability. I don't think its all good, but I don't think its a sign of the end days (not saying you're necessarily saying that, but I see some that act like that). Over time it will improve as the technology around it improves as well.

Physical copies I think will be more of an indie niche thing. I think we'll see a bunch of them buddy up to make a console even (there actually already kinda is one of those, Ars had an article on it, its like a Game Boy but also has a crank on the side, some games used it as a sorta analog control mechanism, it'd obviously be well suited for fishing stuff and some others; but I expect something more like a traditional console with certain ones making their own custom controllers for it; but them trading on nostalgic kicks sorta like how vinyl is carving out a niche for itself).