OK, It's Time To Take Game Streaming Seriously...

Businesses like money and streaming in the near future will be far more profitable than producing a new console every few years. That's why both Sony and MS are investing so heavily in it and pushing their streaming services. So it absolutely is the future of console gaming, PC gaming is a different beastie but eventually even PC games will come from streaming services. (Steam stream!)

I don't like the idea but I'm not so blind to the future not to realise or remain in denial of where the industry is going. 10 years, max, there will be no home consoles only streaming services.

again, I am saying it MIGHT be.

this is a good example of why I do not have to read everything a person says. your response as nice as it might be does not address my points which is very simple.

what they show

is often

not what is actual

Switch did it first.

Resident Evil.

I am on board for the download services like Game Pass and Origin Access Premier, but this streaming shit is not good enough for me.

its bizzare how I likely spend more time playing video games then many here and have done so for longer and I have no idea what Game Pass is and I have no desire to use Origin and yet I download nearly all my games.

just an observation, not a debate topic

Need to stay in the loop man. Xbox Game Pass gives you access to all the latest MS titles as well as a catalogue of third party titles for a subscription fee. The games can be fully downloaded and played natively on Xbox or PC (Play Anywhere titles). Origin Access is similar on PC, but it has two tiers. The basic tier gives you access to an older EA catalogue of games and Premier gives you access to the latest EA games right away and the catalogue. Neither service offers exclusive games to the service (good thing). All the games can still be purchased and downloaded individually. They both offer good value if you play a lot of MS or EA games.

I dont like MS (MS 'pushed' titles), EA or AAA titles.

There are a few I could see myself maybe liking but I have too many games as it is.

You don't like Sim City? That is like the foundation for a lot of the games you like to play.

I loved Sim City 4 friggin +10 years ago!

and yes I like Sims 2 but basically anything after that is not interesting to me.

(Cities Skylines is waaay better by the way. and no I do not play a game years after its been released out of respect because it was the birth place of better games within its genre, I play the most appealing games that I feel will give me fun right then and now. gaming is not some kind of morality topic)

I can now answer my door via video and talk to whomever is at my door. I dont think game streaming will be an issue. The people working on this stuff are much brighter than us.

WTF does that have to do with anything?

Streaming is the present and the future of the world.

The world's biggest drawing Boxer Saul Canelo Alvarez just signed an 11 fight deal with streaming service Dazn for $365m.

Streaming will take over gaming very soon.

I doubt it, could but I doubt it.

the only advantage I see outside of cost to me would be being able to play on different devices.

however, the games I like to play would not really work on other devices, so the rest of it 'on demand' I already have

I'm less concerned about "can we do it" as apposed to "should we?"

We've already seen what happens when you have eco-systems with exclusive content, and digital copies being more expensive than the physical (Consoles) .... and the fact that we lose ANY control over content... bye bye mods, community fixes etc.

If we get to a point where most publishers go stream-only .. even if the tech works great, its more convenience, over control ... again.

Peasants say "all consoles are equal" as if its a good thing 99% of the time.. it really aint, 10-20 years ago you could do whatever the f*ck you liked with a game, people made tons of content... we had a focus on dedicated servers where you built up local communities.

Now its all locked down bullshit with matchmaking as a focus... quick... cheap... shit.

part true part not true.

so for example, do console players really loose much by not being able to download mods and make tweaks? because I assume they cant do that.

Can a developer change your game, remove your mods pretty much at will given you are connected to Steam for example? yeah

but what is the 'Net Net' as a friend would say

well the 'Net Net' is more games, more mods, more freedom. despite it being illogical that does appear to be what is happening in reality, despite the logic

Don’t care if it comes with free pizza. I’m still never gonna play any streaming games.

Streaming gaming is still going to be inferior to the real thing. Only idiots (read you people) settle for less.

Just like "motion gaming will be the future", just like "VR will be the future", "streaming will be the future of video games". You cannot take something that isn't available to everyone and call it the future. Companies love money, yes, but they also acknowledge that money will be lost if they cut out certain customers. Streaming will not be the future because it's prohibitive. That level of high speed internet required for zero latency gameplay simply isn't common place, and even if it were, some customers have data caps and they won't allot for that kind of streaming.

Some people also would never invest in an online console because they know even if they have the world's best internet, they're at the mercy of their ISPs or routers. One or the other goes down, and they've got a brick until it comes back. This is why the PSP Go failed. This is why there was a tremendous backlash when Xbox One was announced in 2013. This is why people are upset over something as minor as having to check in every seven days with their Switches in order to continue to have access to their NES games that are ironically provided by an online service.

Just like motion gaming, just like VR, streaming will be an alternative. Any company, or any customer that invests solely in streaming, is short-sighted.

Says it all really that Sony have been doing it for years and yet everyone is only now starting to take it seriously as Google and MS enter the fray.

I know cows love to harp on about PSNow, but the service is piss poor.

@GarGx1: Bwahahaha, 10 years max. Oh god thanks for the laugh. MS wanted to go all digital at the start of this gen and there was such an uproar in the gaming community that they had to add a disc drive, yet somehow you think in roughly 1 gen it will be all streaming? Lol, keep dreaming kid.

A long time ago now, more than likely longer than you've been on this earth, I was told by a salesman in a computer shop that no one would ever need more than 8k RAM. You remind me of him because he was just as blind to the future as you appear to be.

By the way do you know that there are more active PSN subscribers than the number of PS4's sold as of March 2018. It's coming whether you like it or not.

More-so? Yes. Technology is advancing, but it's still a ways from maturing. I'll probably always go native, until the experience is absolutely seamless.

I believe it is inevitable. It isn't a matter of if, but when. Cloud gaming enables anyone to experience any game on any device. The only drawback is our internet infrastructure, which is continually improving.

It will come to the point where the average consumer won't notice the difference as input lag comes down to the speed of light. The economic benefits for developers and consumers are plentiful and immense. No pay wall to experience games.

"We have shit for water, but apparently the internet is ok... "

Do you live in Flint? :P Too soon.....?

Right. Pretty much every argument I've heard against cloud gaming is not at the fault of the tech itself, but the ISPs. Comcast/Xfinity is the true enemy here. If the internet provider and the service were from the same company, (for example Google's Project Stream and Google Fiber), the experience would be far better. As it is now, the quality of any cloud gaming service is at the mercy of the ISP.

OnLive made efforts to work with ISPs to get the best possible pathway to their data centers. They tested many scenarios to make sure the experience was consistent from user to user.

That speed is WAY above average in every sense... You can only get speed like that in larger cities or the outskirts of bigger cities. For everyone else... including me. The internet is nowhere NEAR that good. I probably pay twice as much for my internet as you do, and I get 6 up and 6 down. That is by far the best provider in my area.

That makes no sense and has no correlation to game streaming.

Boxing and TV in general is all "streaming"... Streaming in boxing is no different than a PPV fight, except now you need a subscription. There is no change at all.

Where as gaming the performance of the game is impact by the hardware running it and by streaming your game not only do you not have a choice in the hardware that is used you also introduce latency and input lag to your game.

Hold your horses.

Streaming games requires server like fields of gaming systems which on the scale needed for a console level of success would be expensive and every time there is a new generation you would still need to upgrade those systems not to mention that each generation would still sell physical streaming boxes and controllers so not only what you say is false its actually the opposite... Having a streaming console would require everything it takes to make a new console now with the addition of expensive server farms of hardware that would need to be drastically stronger than console hardware by nature(specifically CPU/RAM) so there is no saving money not at the numbers that these console sell around.

The amount of maintenance and level of back up needed and sheer amount of systems on these console gaming farms that no console manufacturer with resumes of sales in the 50 million region is even taking game streaming seriously right now... The only people doing it are in doing so with small investment with a audience they know is low, its essentially a test phase for them if that.

15-20 years time?... Maybe but unlikely and it happening any time before that no chance what so ever.

RIKUSAKI!!! I knew he'd win.

@GarGx1: Oh gawd blah blah blah, 8k memory, blah blah blah. Its not happening kid, sorry to burst your bubble.

As of March this year, PSN alone had 80+ million active monthly subscribers which is more than the total number of PS4's sold at that time. In comparison in 2016 Sony had 20 million PS+ active monthly users, I can't find any more recent data in a 1 minute search, so even if we double it for the two year difference, it's still half the active subscriber level of PSN. That suggests to me that there are a lot more people using PSN than there are playing (paying for at least) online gaming through Sony's console and potentially even buying new consoles, as you can access PSN on PS3 and PC as well.

I can't find any real data on Game Pass, which isn't really surprising with MS not exactly being open about sales/user numbers at the moment.

Why is the trolling on this site such poor quality these days? At least put some effort into it.

Xbox One tried to go Streamed at first, and that's what really crushed interest for anyone and also, most people don't like how PS Now works anyways. If Streaming only consoles happens, then there are alot of countries where consoles streaming would completely fail. Most parts of the world don't have the high speed Internet that U.S, U.K or Japan has. And for the one's that do that high speed Internet can only be afforded by the super rich. If the PS5 or Xbox Scarlet for example is going to be a streaming console, then the sales of those consoles is going to pale in comparison to the sales of the PS4 and Xbox One. Most of the world is still many many many years away from streaming video games becoming a possibility. Not even Nintendo isn't gonna bother with streaming because they know gamers still love physical games, that tells you alot.

I get what you are saying GarGx1, but maybe in the next Century, I can see this becoming a reality, but for now, it's safe to say that Sony/MS knows streaming consoles would't take off now, not in this time and age.

Certainly not against it, the problem is less the technology and more the companies.

MS didn't try to go streamed, they tried to go digital only before the core market was ready for it and what totally crushed them was the always on internet, so as they could see what everyone is doing with their consoles 24/7. Don Mattricks' abysmal idea of how to treat customers and his clueless handling of it was icing on the cake. Had they introduced it in a better way (apart from the always on and connected Xbox shit) they could have had a very different result, I've seen lots of people praising Game Pass since it was introduced and lets face it, Game Pass is what they wanted to do with the Xbox One from the start. Unfortunately they also royally screwed up with the most important thing as well, the games or lack of good Xbox focused games.

Most streaming services say they require a minimum 5Mb connection, how true that is I don't know I haven't tried streaming games (and I'm not about to either because I like having my big beefy PC). I'm also not one to instantly believe advertising and marketing but you must be able to get some kind of usable service from the minimum requirements or the streaming service providers would not be able to take peoples money for very long if they didn't. I'm sure to get a good service you need more than 5Mb but I seriously doubt that you really need the 100's that system warriors would have us all believe.

In our little bubble of system wars we do a very bad job of representing average Joe gamer, as we are all heavily invested in gaming (even the console only peasants ;) ) but that's the people game streaming is being targeted at and they also make up the largest proportion of the gaming market, it's why mobile gaming is by far the most lucrative games market. Get average Joe subscribing to a monthly service and you get predictable cash flow. As with all businesses cash flow is king and that's something that makes investors very happy because it's easier for them to predict their investment returns, which brings more investment, which improves services and in turn brings in more consumers, all giving the companies and investors predictable monthly cash flow. Game streaming taking off in a big way is just around the corner and certainly not decades away.

@GarGx1: Its not trolling just a fact, streaming isn't the next big thing. Way to many people have shitty internet, and like I said before MS tried to make an online only console, and well you saw how that turned out and now you think consumers will just accept crappy streaming lol, its cute to think so I guess.

Disagreeing with me is absolutely fine, that's what a discussion is and why discussion forums exist. Your responses so far have been poor troll material and nothing else.

@GarGx1: Except they haven't, you just can't see past your own shitty agenda.

Wut? In what way am I pushing an "agenda"? It's just my opinion, so feel free to disagree with me but please do so without trying to annoy and insult me (by the way calling me a "kid" isn't going to do that)