If the next consoles becomes streaming, what about PC?

Everyone is saying that the next generation of consoles won`t be running on local hardware, but through streaming, just like Onlive and Gaikai is doing. From my point of view this sounds horrible. I love my physical hardware, and I love to have a choice.

If this happens to consoles, what will happen to PC? Will that become a streaming service as well?

Who says that? there is no proof... neither is there proof that bandwidth issues will be resolved in 5 years....

The internet is nowhere near ready... to the point where that would burden companies more than help them.

if a game runs on a server, then it should run on a normal computer/console .... as you know, servers are just computers set up for specific tasks on a larger scale. so I don't see the benefit of doing it all through streaming as the only option.

Eventually.... it will be a good 50/50 or better alternative for those not wanting to spend on hardware... but there doesn't seem to be a reason to only go that route.

Yoshida said that we will see the Playstation brand move more and more away from physical hardware and become more like a service in the future.

We had OnLive for years and I don't know anyone who use the service, it's an excellent way to play single player games without the ultra cost for extreme high end hardware, On the other hand you need very fast internet connection and you can't play it well multiplayer because of lag.

Playstation Now requires a 5mb connection.

I own a 5Mb connection that's very slow, I can't stream well.

Besides I don't know a house where there's not internet connection, it's 2014 not 1995

Did I say anything about people not having internet?

All I said was that Playstation Now requires a 5 mb connection, and im also talking about 5-7 years from now.

Like lag wouldn't put a stop to that?

The infrastructure still isn't there, yet, and even if it was, you still have ISPs who continue to cap and throttle bandwidth, and charge premiums for decent speeds. I don't think game streaming is going to be viable for the majority of people for a very long time.

An uncompressed 1920x1080 image is ~6MB. So uncompressed 1080p video at 60fps would be ~373MBps or ~2,986Mbps in terms of internet speed required.

Obviously compression can cut this down a lot, but if you want image quality like you'd get from actually having the machine, we're a long way off. That isn't even considering ping and controls.

streaming games?? if this becomes a thing of future consoles i'll be out of luck.. my internet is barely faster then dialup at times.

I don't get all this push to digital only. Some people dont have the money for high quality internet, or don't have it available in their area, or have a monopolized internet company that charges extreme costs for every gigabyte... they are just going to cut their customers down to only certain people if they try to keep doing this.

I tried out Onlive for a bit and I really enjoyed it, but with the slight delays on anything rhythm its best to stick with games tied to a HDD or disk.

Before OnLive shut down, I lagged streaming singleplayer games on a 50mbit fiber line. You've got a long wait before it becomes tolerable. Secondly, I find the idea ridiculous anyways, as I'd rather have the files local. Streaming a pc game means i cant change the settings, do tweaks, or mod anything

Welcome to the console world =)

They'd have to do it at the ISP level. Then it could work well, especially with FTTH. You can get less than 5ms to the first hop(which is where it should be hosted or at least close to this)

For cable DOCSIS, it's going to be messy, but what would console players know? Except the fighting game players lol... not to mention the noisy upstream.

how did you do the math, break it down please. Also PC gaming is pushing resolution boundary, in 5 years 1600p will become more common.

Even if the internet was ready, the input delay issue will not be solved in our lifetimes. I see cloud gaming as fine for turn-based gaming, and other slow paced games like adventure. For twitchy, competitive games, it is garbage.

It's a fad that will require several leaps in technology, and a powerful, reliable worldwide network. Sony is going to lose a lot of money if they go too far in that direction.

Not to mention that, rendering a game on your screen will ALWAYS look much better than even a 1080p stream.... do your 1080p youtube videos look as good as the same game on our screen? no ... not even close, washed out crap.

game streaming .... I think will be a success for those wanting to play say PS4 games on their vita, or on a cheap laptop ect.

but as a full replacement... no chance.

This.

I think Playstation Now is a great idea... especially since the consoles are not backwards compatible so it gives you the chance to play older titles, or prequels before you pick up a new sequel.

SteamOS will have streaming, which probably a 0.0000002% of people worldwide will use.

Streaming as a complete replacement for gaming, not a chance.... not in our lifetime anyway. Maybe in 100 years where Internet is instant.

A long way off indeed. 60 FPS will probably never be the standard for a streaming service. A more realistic, yet pretty ideal target would be 45 FPS. That would bring us down to 2239.5 Mbps required. Compression could easily bring that down to ~223.9 Mbps required without too apparent of a hit in video quality, but any more compression and it will be extremely apparent (like Onlive's service). Internet has a ways to go.

The file size of an uncompressed image is width*height*bit depth. Multiply by frame rate to get size per second.

This isn't going to happen in the next 10-15 years. There are far too many places that have horrible spotty connections and the infrastructure just isn't there to support such a thing. Especially if it's a game that look on par with something like crysis 3. Resolutions and everything else is to do with graphics is advancing and the internet is currently stuck where it is so no if there are new consoles in 5-7 years they will not be only streaming devices. Also with stuff like net neutrality being shot down by the courts in the states, you can expect to pay a pretty premium if you wish to use a ridiculous amount of bandwidth to stream your super high resolution games. $60 dollars a month plz. Oh you like playing ps5 well we like Microsoft so $30 dollars more plz. etc etc...

The idea of streaming entirely is retarded anyone thinking this is going to happen any time soon clearly doesn't realize the state of things right now because though we are advancing fast law makers and corporations are slow to adapt and change as well as lay the ground work for such systems to work.