Games Streaming to Your Devices is Inevitable

[BogusMeatFactory]

.... and it is good.

HOT TAKE TIME! I'm currently testing Google's experimental game streaming service, Project Stream and have the delight of playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey for free using it. I was heavily skeptical, but because of my dwindling computer power, wanted to check it out to see if it works as intended and can be a viable solution to my desire to not spend money on a new PC.

Let me set the record straight, games streaming to your devices IS INEVITABLE, but I do not think it will replace physical and digital media, but it will be a VERY VIABLE option for a certain demographic and they will love it.

It works.... a hell of a lot better than I expected. There was no input lag that I noticed, even during moments where it notified me, "YOUR INTERNET STINKS!" at that point there was some video compression, but those happened in very very small instances. For the bulk of the time the image quality was great! It wasn't running on max settings but it looked high. There were some weird lighting issues where sometimes the game was brighter than other moments. I was insanely impressed as to how well this worked.

Now, when it launched worldwide, I dont know how well it will do and I know that folks with slower connection speeds will have issues (my internet is middle of the road).

In the end, my computer couldn't handle this game normally, but can now. If I have no loyalty to owning games outright, this is a viable option and it worked stellarly. It was so surprising.

[Xeogred]

Yeah, I've heard good things about this and people testing it out with Odyssey.

Still don't like the idea though, probably never will. I think this is the point where I'll go Super Saiyan Old Man and will forever stick with my old ways of physical media/emulation.

If there's a positive, maybe it'll be the game industry that really pushes forward our sluggish internet compared to the rest of the world, it's kind of embarrassing really.

[GSZX1337]

I'm glad to hear, but not surprised, that you had a better experience with Google's streaming service than I did with OnLive (Good Riddance), but I'm a bit confused by this:

Let me set the record straight, games streaming to your devices IS INEVITABLE, but I do not think it will replace physical and digital media, but it will be a VERY VIABLE option for a certain demographic and they will love it.

Isn't that how it already is? Sony has PSNow, nVidia has GeForce Now, and GameFly's recently discontinued cloud gaming service will be resurrected by EA. And from what I hear they are quite robust.

Still don't like the idea though, probably never will. I think this is the point where I'll go Super Saiyan Old Man and will forever stick with my old ways of physical media/emulation.

I'd probably be similar to you since music streaming, and especially movie streaming frustrates me with their constantly fluctuating libraries. Recently I searched for White Wizzard's albums under the Earache label, which have been on Google Play since I started using the service, and all I can find was the band's releases that were independently released. I also looked for the classic MegaMan soundtracks from Capcom Sound Team, which have also been on the Google Play Music service for years, but I searched yesterday and they were no longer on the service. As for movie streaming, I think this image is apt for all the major streaming services:

If there's a positive, maybe it'll be the game industry that really pushes forward our sluggish internet compared to the rest of the world, it's kind of embarrassing really.

It really is. I'm lucky that Google had taken interest in installing Fiber in Nashville, which caused AT&T to roll out their Fiber more quickly, but I'm a small minority.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Games streaming to devices is not mainstream yet. Psnow is flawed and half assed. We are seeing big name developers focus on it and test it with capcom in the Japanese market streaming RE7 on the switch and stating it a success with ubisoft testing it with Google's project stream.

There is a big difference between streaming music and movies versus games. Having little to no input lag is a huge necessity to break through the market. I kid you not, the next generation of systems will offer two versions of their hardware, a $500 version of physical hardware and a $100 version which will be a tiny box you just plug into your tv and stream.

Developers are saying it's the future, the media have been saying it's the future and they are not wrong.

[GSZX1337]

Games streaming to devices is not mainstream yet.

I see. Now that I know exactly what you mean, I absolutely concur.

Psnow is flawed and half assed.

Damn, that sucks. I just thinking about subscribing it for my PC too.

There is a big difference between streaming music and movies versus games. Having little to no input lag is a huge necessity to break through the market.

I have no objection to this sentiment. I wholeheartedly agree with it. Decreasing quality in streamed music or video doesn't really affect the overall experience much, but decreasing quality in streamed games would definitely hurt the experience as that's more calculations for a far away server to do. Hell, the low input latency is one of the few things that I liked about OnLive.

Your thread has gotten me aware and interested in this service. I requested an invite not too long ago. Hope I get accepted.

[jfrost]

I'm not against that on a fundamental level, but I do wonder what that means for the huge, astronomical budget AAA games. Publishers have been crying for a while about soaring costs and monetize them in every possible way. If you're streaming games, high graphical fidelity should be a huge bottleneck.

And while people are annoyed now that we're just back to fragmentation with multiple video streaming services, that has always been the case with games (with multiple platforms, something I've always been against).

[Ack]

I expect we may see some pushback against modern textures, at least until Internet infrastructure is at a point where it can handle games that are upwards of 50 Gigs. Most of the increase in file size in the last 20 years comes from texture files, so how those will be compressed is critical.

[GSZX1337]

It's not just texture files. Larger audio files have contributed to the increase as well, though this is much more recent. The original Titanfall made news because 35GB out of its 48GB size is uncompressed audio files.
https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/1783 ... ll-is-48gb

[marurun]

The biggest problem in the US is going to have to do with internet infrastructure. Game streaming make it impossible for many rural users to play games, and even many suburban gamers. Further, with net neutrality out of the picture, data caps will make gaming a lot more expensive. I think Japan and Korea and some European nations will be quicker to get on board than the US will due to these infrastructure bottlenecks in the US.

[isiolia]

I'm not against that on a fundamental level, but I do wonder what that means for the huge, astronomical budget AAA games. Publishers have been crying for a while about soaring costs and monetize them in every possible way. If you're streaming games, high graphical fidelity should be a huge bottleneck.

I don't think graphical fidelity is as big of an issue with streaming. Obviously, sure, high res, high detail images are larger and will take more bandwidth to stream. However, part of the service is matching that to the connection and device. The fact that their movie will end up getting streamed at anything from 360p to 4k HDR doesn't keep filmmakers from targeting the high end.

Optimizing storage and memory use might be an issue for datacenters running them, but to a fair extent, the selling point of streaming will be getting a high quality experience on as many devices as possible.

The big problem is with latency. It's one thing to get a mainstream third person action game working, where things are relatively low demand. Getting something like a fighting or rhythm game working would be harder, and even moreso with more cutting edge tech, such as VR, that relies on a wide array of very low latency I/O to work convincingly.

I think it's a good thing to have streaming as an option though, and it'll probably be a common mainstream option soon enough.