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[FranXico]

Sony loses it's lock on the market.

I would like to know where do people get this notion that Sony has some kind of hold on the market. Most people aren't even aware of what market control really is (hint: it's not only about sales) and quite a few support far more dangerous companies.

Apart from this point, most of the OP was reasonable. Google blunders aside, Stadia is just not ready yet.

 

[Ballthyrm]

They will?
We still have parts of the USA without good fast internet bandwidth needed for this to work for everyone.
Not to mention current cap limits a lot of providers have in place. It’s a long way off for streaming to work for everyone on the planet.

Call me an optimist but i think these guys are going to deliver.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)#Kuiper_Systems
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb_satellite_constellation
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation)

 

[psorcerer]

Imagine booting up Uncharted 6 that uses an offsite PC with next-next-next gen hardware

Not profitable. Not gonna happen.
Unless hardware is redesigned. PC with any OS cannot run more that 1 game session in parallel right now. Which means you can only time share, but you cannot time share efficiently because you still need a very low latency.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

It's not as shit as I thought it'd be, either, but I would still never want it to replace actually owning a thing and not having to deal with the downsides of cloud gaming. Particularly since I don't place any value on the benefits of cloud.

I'm fine with cloud existing, just as long as I can still play games the way I want, too.

 

[lucius]

You say your in speeds only 1% get that in 10-15 years it will catch up with others no it won’t, gaming is not gonna stand still gets way more demanding every few years. I really don’t believe it’s gonna ever be the future. It will an option but most people that regularly play games would only do that option if nothing else is available.

 

[Smaller than Atom]

They will?
We still have parts of the USA without good fast internet bandwidth needed for this to work for everyone.
Not to mention current cap limits a lot of providers have in place. It’s a long way off for streaming to work for everone on the planet.

Define 'soon'.

 

[DESTROYA]

Call me an optimist but i think these guys are going to deliver.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)#Kuiper_Systems
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb_satellite_constellation
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation)

That’s being way too optimistic and even amazon says it’s about 10+ years away and out of the 3 they are the only one with any chance of success with this.

“Amazon has not announced if they intend to sell broadband service directly to consumers, but they will "offer broadband service through partnerships with other companies.”

If anything Amazon will it use it for themselves, streaming or even offering there own streaming game service.

 

[DESTROYA]

Define 'soon'.

soon
adverb
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\ ˈsün , especially New England ˈsu̇n\
Definition of soon

1: without undue time lapse : BEFORE LONGsoon after sunrise
2: in a prompt manner : SPEEDILYas soon as possiblethe sooner the betterno sooner said than done
3: in agreement with one's choice or preference : WILLINGLYI'd just as soon walk as drive
4archaic : before the usual time
5obsolete : at once : IMMEDIATELY

 

[Chittagong]

You say your in speeds only 1% get that in 10-15 years it will catch up with others no it won’t, gaming is not gonna stand still gets way more demanding every few years. I really don’t believe it’s gonna ever be the future. It will an option but most people that regularly play games would only do that option if nothing else is available.

Basing it on this

and this:

The World’s Internet in 2018: Faster, Modernizing and Always On

Find out how much mobile and fixed broadband speeds increased, which countries are fastest and which most improved, and what time of day people are online.

www.speedtest.net

average speed is currently around 10Mbps. It’s grown threefold in 5 years. Getting to 75Mbps average (7.5x) will take 10-15 years. 5G may change that, however.

 

[VFXVeteran]

Not profitable. Not gonna happen.
Unless hardware is redesigned. PC with any OS cannot run more that 1 game session in parallel right now. Which means you can only time share, but you cannot time share efficiently because you still need a very low latency.

I was imagining several PCs whereby each would be handling one instance of a user. 1 PC with chained GPUs sharing VRAM could happen. Of course I'm just dreaming of what could be. But surely hardware won't be the only sole solution for playing games in the home.

 

[Kagero]

seems like a step backwards as far as gaming experience. I don’t know why you would choose to play a game with less graphical fidelity when you have a choice. Until they can offer a superior gaming experience I can see it taking off. Not next gen but the following gen after maybe.

 

[brian0057]

If Stadia is the future of gaming, then I'll just stop buying and playing newer games going forward and stick to my backlog (Christ knows it's never ending).
I refuse to engage with an industry where Google is the dominating entity.
And given the state of YouTube, Stadia is not looking like a great future.

 

[Tomeru]

I'm wondering how good is stadia while you have several users on the same network doing different things. Say, one user is stadiaing, one watcing movies, one download stuff, one doing voice call or whatever.

 

[Mildudon]

Gee whiz stadia sure sounds great. Plus you don't get mod support and no more worrying about preserving games for the future.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Until we make some miraculous leap in networking technology, for the majority of people this will be a suboptimal experience.

Granted the mainstream has happily adopted suboptimal experiences if things like price or ease of use are there.

I'm skeptical.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Great write up, OP. I enjoyed reading your analysis

Visual & Audio Experience

Resolution and frame rate. The visual quality was generally on the soft side. I would guess in the 1080P ballpark. Text feels a bit soft, but not distractingly so. The frame rate remained stable throughout my sessions, and to my surprise, I never encountered a drop in the stream quality or the pixellation I expected.

Details, effects and post processing. The games I played - Destiny 2 and Wolfenstein: Young Blood - didn't seem to run on anything near Ultra settings. To my untrained eye, the level of detail seemed about medium, and I saw visible aliasing. This was baffling, given that the games are supposed to run on powerful blades.

this seems to be a common critique across the board, and for me is puzzling. Has Google explained why the settings are low on so many titles?

 

[Romulus]

Casual gamers will make this a powerhouse once the pricing model improves.

 

[DESTROYA]

I'm wondering how good is stadia while you have several users on the same network doing different things. Say, one user is stadiaing, one watcing movies, one download stuff, one doing voice call or whatever.

Not good at all, they recommend using Stadia alone and not using other internet services.

 

[Chittagong]

Great write up, OP. I enjoyed reading your analysis

this seems to be a common critique across the board, and for me is puzzling. Has Google explained why the settings are low on so many titles?

Thanks!

It really makes no sense. It wasn’t a “wow highend PC gfx” experience, but rather an “eh, somewhere between XB1 and XB1X” experience.

Wolfenstein has the standard splash screens and even had a loading time from the title screen, so my guess is that it’s an absolute minimum effort ROM dump equivalent with zero optimisation for Google’s stack, paid by a money hat from Google.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

TBH, data caps seem mostly to be a US thing (well, Australia too). I'm not sure if I'm able to get a capped mobile plan here in .fi as a consumer (there are some for companies, so that e.g. a secretary can get her emails but it doesn't cost much extra). There have never been data caps on fixed lines. The ISP situation in the US is just fucked.

I really hope I don’t sound a like self-obsessed American, but even data caps are just a US problem, isn’t that still a pretty big problem (market wise)?

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Casual gamers will make this a powerhouse once the pricing model improves.

I wouldn't know about that, the biggest hurdle for the casuals is not the device but the controller. Basic foundations of modern gaming like camera control are strange to them.

 

[nowhat]

I really hope I don’t sound a like self-obsessed American, but even data caps are just a US problem, isn’t that still a pretty big problem (market wise)?

It's a significant market for sure. But nowadays it would be naive to assume that's your only market, it is dwarfed by the rest of the world.

(and if you're going to target a global audience, you bloody better cater to it as well - yes, looking at you launch Xbox One with no proper PAL HDMI passthrough, but I digress)

 

[Grinchy]

Connection
I sit literally on top of a fibre switch in London, so I have pretty much the optimal conditions for gameplay. While today I am probably in the 0.1% of connections, in 10-15 years my connection will surely be very commonplace.

96 Mbps isn't all that great, is it? I don't (and will never) have any fiber connections anywhere on my side of the entire United States. I pay $70/month at one of the most hated ISPs there are (Spectrum). And even my fast.com speed reading is 120mbps.

 

[Romulus]

I wouldn't know about that, the biggest hurdle for the casuals is not the device but the controller. Basic foundations of modern gaming like camera control are strange to them.

I would agree with this 10-15 years ago. But I think modern casual gamers are growing up learn these things more often than not.

 

[Chittagong]

Data caps will be an adoption issue, whether real or preceived. I mean, I don’t even know if I have data caps on my fibre plan but I nevertheless felt uneasy just leaving the game on a pause screen that is constantly streamed. So it will be a concern to people. How much more is it than Netflix etc., I don’t know.

I think the ‘buy games model’ is a non-starter. I felt ridiculous paying £25 for Wolfenstein New Blood (I did it for GAF!). I think subscription models to games like Xbox Game Pass will make much more sense in this world. You can just jump from game to game without friction.

 

[nemiroff]

It's almost like the massive industry push for ultra-low latency and pixel perfect high image quality never happened. So bizarre, so bizarre..

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I personally am fine with subscriptions. I subscribe to Uplay+, Origin Premier, and Game Pass, they have already saved me money in the long run.

i doubt I ever go streaming for gaming, but if I do it needs to be a sub model, not a sub + buy to own

 

[sunnysideup]

Think about living in the 50s. You just knew everything is going to get bet better. You are going to get a car, maybe even two, a washing machine, an ac unit, central heating.

Today, you know everything is going to get worse. This is the perfect example.

 

[lucius]

Your not adding in the fact that the Movie/TV/Sports streaming services with 8k and whatever is next is going to be eating into that, they are already suggesting others not stream internet while u game that’s funny, or is this for just single people, most families u already have 3 people or more steaming at same time so are you gonna adjust your game time when no one else is on, in its current form it not gonna work as even a good option for most people. We can see in 20-30 years lots can happen both positive or negative for game steaming.

 

[existensmaximum]

They will?
We still have parts of the USA without good fast internet bandwidth needed for this to work for everyone.
Not to mention current cap limits a lot of providers have in place. It’s a long way off for streaming to work for everone on the planet.

Data caps is not a thing in Europe though. I'd literally never heard of it until recently.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Data caps is not a thing in Europe though. I'd literally never heard of it until recently.

I envy you. Comcast has me by the balls with this data cap bullshit. Had to pay 50 bucks extra just in data overage this month

fucking stupid

gotten to the point where I downgraded my speed/plan to a slower/cheaper one just to compensate

 

[Bryank75]

we are coming closer and closer to a point where the hardware of local consoles will have enough power to make graphics a thing that's only dependent on the developers/artists.

and when we hit that mark there will be absolutely no need for streaming services and all the drawbacks that come with them.

so no, game streaming will die as a main way to play games is what I predict. it is clunky as fuck, it is unreliable, it will never lose the input lag issue... that's just not physically possible and the issue of remote places having connection issues will keep it forever from being mainstream.
the only place streaming has is the role of a side thing that you use from time to time as a backup when your console/PC is not in reach.
xCloud is the perfect service IMO because of that reason. it is an added bonus to Xbox consoles, you can stream your whole digital Xbox library if you're not at home etc. but the main way to play is still your local console.




I love how selling 40 to 50 million consoles = Dead
Microsoft literally never had a console sell worse than the GameCube and the Xbox One is only slightly behind the Xbox 360 in the same timespan... yet Xbox is dead... these fucking people

40 million would be an okay number if they confirmed it but that doesn't dismiss the fact that 90% of those sales are in the USA. The brand is a big nothing outside the US and is still outsold there by PS4...

But I would prefer Xbox as a console to succeed than any streaming service... including PSNow. So I am with you there.

 

[Thanati]

I also had a great Stadia experience (although setup really was bad) and have played more over the week and am really enjoying it. However, don't post anything positive regarding Stadia here on GAF. You'll just get shot down.

 

[Smaller than Atom]

soon
adverb
Save Word
To save this word, you'll need to log in.
Log In

\ ˈsün , especially New England ˈsu̇n\
Definition of soon

1: without undue time lapse : BEFORE LONGsoon after sunrise
2: in a prompt manner : SPEEDILYas soon as possiblethe sooner the betterno sooner said than done
3: in agreement with one's choice or preference : WILLINGLYI'd just as soon walk as drive
4archaic : before the usual time
5obsolete : at once : IMMEDIATELY

Then no.

 

[FrostyJ93]

Idk about making console and PC but game streaming can be great for the more casual audience who dont want to spend hundreds on hardware and who don't have so many hours in a month or whatever to play.

 

[Tomeru]

Not good at all, they recommend using Stadia alone and not using other internet services.

Than what is so futuristic about that? Thats a pretty huge deal breaker if I ever saw it.

 

[DESTROYA]

Than what is so futuristic about that? Thats a pretty huge deal breaker if I ever saw it.

I’m with you brother!

 

[Three]

The issue with streaming isn't bandwidth but latency. I have a 500Mb connection in London too but that's not what the bottleneck to a good experience is. It's the latency your ping to the Stadia servers.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Streaming could become the next big thing.

 

[DESTROYA]

Streaming could become the next big thing.

So can poking yourself in the eye.

 

[ethomaz]

Input lag test

That is fine to you?
Did you tried Destiny's Crucible with that lag?

 

[thief183]

Well, with the latenxy on that last gif I'd prefer to stop play completely

 

[Shiken]

People believe in false truths all the time.

 

[Chittagong]

That is fine to you?
Did you tried Destiny's Crucible with that lag?

I wouldn’t do competitive multiplayer with it at this point, I think the current experience is ok for most single player campaigns. Not Sekiro though.

 

[Deleted member 740922]

Data caps is not a thing in Europe though. I'd literally never heard of it until recently.

It is in Ireland:

Eir - "Should you exceed your usage limit, or your usage exceeds the fair usage policy, you may be charged.

eir Fibre (Unlimited) and eir Fibre Extreme packages are subject to a fair usage policy of 1TB (1,000GB) per month."

Virgin Media - "All Fibre Power Broadband services are subject to our Acceptable Usage Policy. The monthly data transfer allowance is 500GB for each broadband package Virgin Media offers."

 

[existensmaximum]

It is in Ireland:

Eir - "Should you exceed your usage limit, or your usage exceeds the fair usage policy, you may be charged.

eir Fibre (Unlimited) and eir Fibre Extreme packages are subject to a fair usage policy of 1TB (1,000GB) per month."

Virgin Media - "All Fibre Power Broadband services are subject to our Acceptable Usage Policy. The monthly data transfer allowance is 500GB for each broadband package Virgin Media offers."

Sure, there are exceptions.

 

[Naru]

Ok Google...

 

[Vow of Silence]

Streaming and VR are incompatible. If VR takes off it will require local hardware to avoid vomit inducing lag. As VR hardware develops it will become more powerful, slicker and easier to use, be without wires and also probably have HDMI out options for normal gaming on screens. Developers will create VR and non VR modes for their games that can switch at ease. If download speeds and storage increase downloading games will be no bother.

Personally I think VR is more likely pointing the direction of the future rather than streaming.

 

[Neofire]

Has anyone considered that this Google concoction can't even keep up with current Gen consoles but is expected to compete with Next Gen hardware? Lol

 

[Bryank75]

Has anyone considered that this Google concoction can't even keep up with current Gen consoles but is expected to compete with Next Gen hardware? Lol

Yes, THANK YOU!

Once next gen launches, it will make streaming look like a joke!