Game streaming how will it affect the status quo?

For the last 10 years with have seen talk that game streaming is coming and a lot of companies have said it's going to be our future replacing local consoles. Despite all the hype it's only really in the last couple of years that's it been a viable solution down to the increased number of data centres and faster internet connections. So if we are going to see game streaming gaining traction over the next few years how does that affect the current gaming giants? Microsoft is best placed with its combination of Xbox branding, Azure data centres and now a large collection of game IPs. I'm assuming Nintendo will likely carry on it's on path of handhelds and avoid game streaming all together for a considerable time. Google and Amazon both have the data centres to compete but they don't have their own gaming IPs to compete yet and Google has a bad history of killing things off so they will need to overcome peoples apprehension to investing in Stadia. The company I see most at risk is Sony as I don't see how they can compete with Xcloud if they have are going to be using Azure to underpin their own offering as surely Microsoft will have a price advantage that they won't give to Sony and for Sony to build their global data centres it's going be a £5billion investment which doesn't make sense if you only have one use case unlike Microsoft and Amazon who can use spare server capacity for their other cloud customers.

Do Sony need partner with someone like Amazon or Google to build their PlayStation cloud? Or will this streaming phase pass and we all carry on playing games on local consoles.

Stadia is going down, down, deeper and down.

I may be wrong... but I think Sony has teamed up with Microsoft for their cloud gaming infrastructure.

Edit: Yeah!

Last edited by coldspice on Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They'll be fine. Still living off the money from that Argos ad campaign probably.

For me I'd like streaming to be a thing but at the moment I prefer having home consoles.
I suppose I'm just a bit old fashioned in that I like the hype and build-up to a new console launch and the speculation about capabilities and then finally getting my hands on the machine itself.
Having the hardware just be an amorphous thing just somehow isn't the same and I realise that may be stupid.

Eventually it will be how gaming works and I think Microsoft's long term strategy is pretty clearly to be the industries' back end via Azure and the front end via Game Pass. But for now, the infrastructure isn't there.

I think it will great to be able to play whatever you want, again and again, in my chair.

I can't see it really kicking off until decent internet speeds are rocking all over the world.

I would love it to get really popular. The dream is to have an Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo app all built in to your smart TV and you pay a subscription to play whatever you want. No more consoles and no more discs.

Dual wrote:I would love it to get really popular. The dream is to have an Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo app all built in to your smart TV and you pay a subscription to play whatever you want. No more consoles and no more discs.

Hopefully long term this is what we’ll end up with, with each respective companies entire back catalogue on there so you can pick up and play anything if you’re connected to the internet, maybe with an option to download games so you can still play offline.

The one thing that leaves me apprehensive about the Netflix or Spotify model of streaming game libraries, is that you could pump in a significant amount of money over the years, and you still end up with nothing once you end your subscription. Meanwhile, my steam library is now massive, and I reckon if you average out what I've spent on that over the years to a per month sum, it would be pretty comparable to what a lot of these subscription services come in at.

The biggest benefit that game streaming has, is it removes the need for the mass production of disposable consumer hardware. People won't need to go out and replace obsolete consoles or PC components at anything like the rate they do now, and the servers the games run on will use considerably less in the way of raw materials than would be the case of all users were running their own systems. These server centres will also be in a much better position to recycle old tech on mass, rather than replying on individual consumers to go and do their own tech recycling, which is more likely to see tech parts, with all their valuable rare easy materials within, wind up in landfill.

This is why I like the idea of systems like Shadow for the pc. You build your own digital library of games that you own, on other platforms, and you hire the hardware in a data centre to stream it all on to your TV. Once they solve latency problems, this will be a much more sustainable, and valuable proposition for gamers.

The environmental argument Knoyleo lays out is pretty damn convincing for home consoles.

It's just handhelds where dedicated hardware and local/offline game storage is necessary.

Well if everything does end up being streamed then surely using your phones and a separate pad could take on a more traditional handheld gaming experience? Obviously wouldn’t be quite as good as a dedicated handheld gaming device but still serviceable for some users.

Depends where you're playing right? You're just not going to get stable streaming on a bus or train or plane - all places I do play my Switch.

OrangeRKN wrote:Depends where you're playing right? You're just not going to get stable streaming on a bus or train or plane - all places I do play my Switch.

Not yet but with 5G and WiFi on planes why couldn't it happen? You would just need to pack a tablet and a controller.

OrangeRKN wrote:Depends where you're playing right? You're just not going to get stable streaming on a bus or train or plane - all places I do play my Switch.

Yeah it would depend on where you are and how the access is to wifi or whatever G we’re currently on, I think it would be doable though, just not quite as convenient as the Switch or 3DS.

jawa wrote:I may be wrong... but I think Sony has teamed up with Microsoft for their cloud gaming infrastructure.

Edit: Yeah!

Still no real word of Sony streaming yet. No doubt MS are happy to give them cloud support for a price but will not be sharing any tech behind Xcloud.

Photek wrote:
jawa wrote:I may be wrong... but I think Sony has teamed up with Microsoft for their cloud gaming infrastructure.

Edit: Yeah!

Still no real word of Sony streaming yet. No doubt MS are happy to give them cloud support for a price but will not be sharing any tech behind Xcloud.

Absolutely, Photek; the agreement is focussed upon centralised processing and streaming. It's likely to be a touch more than Microsoft "giving Sony cloud support", though as Microsoft themselves have said:

Microsoft wrote:The two companies will explore joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services.

It's a good thing for both Sony and MS to offer a streaming service in the future imo. A much as people get into 'Console Wars' I'd prefer both these companies and Nintendo take gaming forward rather than Google and Amazon.

Say for example a game costs £40 and it's on a streaming model for £8 a month, and you can transfer saves (PS Now model which I played for hours on the free trial and it actually worked just fine 98% of the time), it's definitely a much better way of trying games than a demo or going to the hassle of buying and trading in/selling when you're done with it.

Game streaming how will it affect the status quo?

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