Topic: I think "cloud games" is the worst concept ever conceived for video games

@Heavyarms55 Like I said, I honestly think the concept of streaming games can only work as a subscription based service like PS Now where you are paying a monthly fee to access a wide variety of games. This whole concept of buying an individual game to stream is just really bad.

@19Robb92 The problem with comparing streaming games to streaming video is how video games require a much faster connection in order to work. The biggest issue is the fact that in order to stream a video game you need to be able to upload quickly as well as download quickly, while streaming video only needs to download and it doesn't need to be particularly fast unless you are trying to stream 4K. That, and if your upload isn't fast enough you will experience a lot of noticeable lag which will ruin the experience, while video is pretty easy to have run smoothly as it only needs to buffer.

As for mobile devices it will be pretty much impossible to stream with a phone as you will likely hit your data cap in less than a day, and that is assuming it is fast enough to support it.

This is the exact reason why I will never buy any game that requires a server somewhere to be active to be able to play it. There have been countless examples of games that required a constant internet connection and after only 1 or 2 years, the servers stopped. They're a waste of money imo.

@JayJ Correct me if I am wrong though, isn't PS Now still a service that let's you download the game overall? You might not get to keep it, but it still runs locally on your machine, right? I might well be wrong because I have never used it.

The problem is it's not just a technology problem, it's a physics and geography problem. To bore everyone with a bit of maths/science for a second most online communications are done over fiber. Even if you have a mobile device or a copper connection to your house pretty much the entire path is fiber. Essentially light travelling through glass, the speed of light through glass = 208km/ms.

Now you might be thinking "well 1ms for every 200km isn't too bad". And sure, if you are in the same city as where the game is being rendered it's not too bad. For example I'm about 30km by road to the CBD so there and back is still under 1ms by fiber. But if it wasn't in my home city? The next closest city to me is 2700km away or 27ms of additionally latency. Which is kinda insane because I live in a city that's surrounded by nothing for 1000s of km. But even so, how many of these rendering farms would you have to deploy to cover the vast majority of people?

There are hard limits to how viable this sort of model can be that won't be solved with better tech. We're far more likely to be able to get better end user results at lower costs for publishers by putting more powerful devices into people's hands.

@Heavyarms55 No you must be thinking of the PS Store or PS Plus which occasionally hands out "free" downloads. PS Now is Sony's streaming service that lets you stream PS3 games.

I think it is a viable solution for those that live in areas with a very strong internet infrastructure. If you beat games and never return to them it's much more attractive than buying a game and trading it back in.

It's a good concept, it's just not a viable option in most places. But if Sony and Microsoft are pushing for native 4K games it will become even more difficult to have a cloud based game perform the same as a console.

It's basically in a race which it will never win...unless it gets a Bullet Bill or a Golden Mushroom somehow

As I said, there are more limitations than just your own internet connection. You need fantastic internet, for sure, but you also need to live in a large enough centre of population. Large enough that it would make sense for them to put one of their servers in your city. And even then it still won't be cheaper for them to distribute it this way. The only problem it solves is the problem of your device being too slow to run the content.

.......... which is increasingly a non-issue anyway

@JayJ I stand corrected.

You want a very good example why cloud games is a terrible concept if it ends up being the only way to play? Guitar Hero Live

Most of that game's content is the streaming service GHTV yet GHTV is being shutdown on December 1st so what are you left with? Well after December 1st, you'll only have access to the 42 disc songs and nothing else.

A few thoughts.

1. When every console is always connected to the internet and mostly sitting idle you don’t necessarily need a good server farm near every customer if you have enough consoles in the market because every console becomes a potential server.

It’d take a big change in the way we think of consoles though, mesh gaming hardware into an increasingly service based environment, require a critical mass of units in the market and many would hate the terms & conditions of owning & using a console.

2. Some genres will never work well streaming. Others (adventure, cinematics and strategy games) could.

3. I predict large scale open world games will start to blur the lines. Simulate and render the world immediately around the player locally but render the distant (unseeable) world and stream it. You’d get a more immersive world and it wouldn’t rely on a 100% rock solid internet connection.