What about game streaming?

All the argument about budget consoles, SSD storage capacity and such, but how does game streaming services like PS Now, and I believe Xbox is working on game streaming services as well.

I tried out the service just recently, never gave it much thought because I didn't have much faith it'd work well. Sure enough, all the games I tried played about as well as they would if I installed and played them on a physical PS4. So, if people use game streaming services like this, it would seem capacity isn't all that important, and would be reserved for your most played games, stuff you want to be able to play offline, or hyper competitive stuff.

I don't really think the technology is here yet to be able to stream games without any sacrifices (Artifacts in picture quality and lag)

Plus.....streaming is an insanely casual way to play games. I really don't see it taking off other than mobile games or quick pick up and play games. I think a lot of gamers take the hobby seriously, and a console or PC is a worthwhile investment into the hobby.......because console and PC are the best way to play to get the most out of the experience

Dude. xCloud and Stadia are dead.

I anticipate streaming gaining more traction in the coming years but it also could fail in the coming years to. 😂

All game streaming services are dead, thats why they are added to to other services or allow more such as downloading. The network hasn't got good enough yet.

@Star67: Yeah Digital Foundry showed how bad the input delay still is in games.

Streaming is there for movies and tv series. But not there yet for games.

I’m curious how the gaming-in-the-cloud experience will improve with wider adoption of 5G.

I find it funny how enthusiastic people here were about streaming games, and now the Google console is never talked about.

If my internet were better i would stream games. I can handle some slight input delay but as of now I can barely make out whats happening on screen when i share play with friends.

they should beam wirelessly to the tv

Oh I'm sure we'll hear plenty about that crap soon enough...

I tried Stadia and it was a complete joke, I seriously stand by my thought that the Ouya was and is better overall.... that's how bad Stadia is. We might get to a reasonable point in game streaming eventually, but for now we aren't even close. Especially for trying to play online games.

This is another tech (just like I feel VR is) that just isn't quite there yet. However, I'm sure as the years pass we will be hearing/seeing more and more. Honestly I hope I'm wrong, but I know I'm not.

I've been playing PS Now with some fairly modern titles, with a lot of motion requiring precise controls and have had no issues with it. I've gotten worse input lag from Bluetooth controllers before. People would still likely opt to install more competitive games to the hard drive, but for a lot of the stuff out there, it wouldn't be necessary at all. If you're curious and your network can handle it (meaning, you're not a DSL scrub or using wi-fi) then give it a try. It's a lot better than I thought it would be.

Well, it's really all about the movement towards a hardware independent gaming platform, allowing the software to scale independently from its hardware install base. This is certainly what Microsoft are aiming for.

The technology isn't quite there yet, and there will always be pros and cons to streaming, which means local hardware gaming isn't going anywhere soon. I think Microsoft have the right approach in making xCloud a supplementary service, instead of shooting for the stars and trying to replace consoles altogether like Google.

I don't think streaming is the future, but it can be a part of it.

It is there though, if you have a decent enough connection, and wire your computer/console directly into LAN. Games usually don't read stuff off the drive in real time but load smaller portions of it at a time into RAM. If the streaming services takes data over the network (think of it like a network hard drive or CD/DVD drive) then the level you're playing will be loaded into RAM, and therefor be little different than a game installed on your PC. You may see loading times happen again like you used to see on OG Xbox and PS2 for some titles, but over all, having been trying game streaming for the past 2 days, I've noticed no difference in frame rates or input lag. I just have to wait a few moments for the data to cache before the game starts but that's really about it.

ACG seems to love xcloud. Not from the cloud, but streaming from console to your android device. Seems like a nice option for on-network mobile gaming. Will have to check it out.

In the US, there is not enough bandwidth, we proved that with On Live

Just ordered a PS4 controller, and I'm going to get PS Now on the PC. Check out some of those exclusives.

Edit 1: Just got the PS4 control pad. Seems very nice, much more comfortable than the PS1 and PS2 pads I have. Am used to the deeper triggers on Xbox pads though. I haven't used it yet, the touch pad is also a button I assume. Will be interesting to see what gaming with this is like. Impressive.

Edit 2: Works pretty well. UI isn't great and I'm not sure why there's a limit on the amount of games you can add to your list.

Game streaming is for those who can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p or 30fps vs 60fps. Any normal person won't bother for the years to come. Tech is not where it needs to be.

If you're on a phone, you ain't seeing the difference between 720p and 1080p. Maybe when you start getting into 10" tablets but I am not even sure you will then. And on PC, it's not enough of a difference to care.

720p is so low that its very easy to spot on a phone or not. I have no idea how can you even say that on pc is not enough of a difference to care. I don't want to go back in 2007.

On a phone, it actually isn't because the pixel density on a 4" screen is going to be much smaller than you're going to see with 20/20 vision. Unless you're putting the device directly up to your eyeball. I'm guessing you do not fully understand how the human eye and display resolutions work. And I have a 24" monitor sitting about 28 inches from me. No, 720P isn't going to make or break a gaming experience. You'll notice it, like I said, but not enough to care. It's not like console gamers have ever had a good gaming experience visually speaking to begin with.

I am aware of how it works. 720p is low even for my 3" cemra screen.

I agree. To my eyes a 720p resolution looks fine on my 5" phone screen.

Take Wolfenstein the new Colossus or Doom on Switch. Play the game on a big screen 4K TV and it looks horrid and blurred, where the low res 540P resolution really stick out and makes you think something has gone seriously wrong with your Eyes!

Play the same games in portable mode and they look a lot better, sharp even.

I kinda wish game streaming was good. I have a gigabit (1000Mb/s) internet connection so I'm sure it would be awesome at mine.