@pyro1245: Google could've absolutely dominated the entire gaming industry, streaming or otherwise. If they had taken the proper steps to do so of course. Some of those steps having needed to be taken several years ago. The story of steps?
Having aquired Youtube. Google realized that they could generate significantly more revenue if only more people could watch YouTube videos. The problem was that many homes still had internet speeds that were still too slow to stream the videos. At least decently. While Netflix's movies were long enough to allow even slower connections to buffer ahead enough that only the first few minutes was of poor quality, YouTube's content consisted mostly of videos only a couple of minutes or so long. By the time the background buffering caught up enough to adequately display the content, the video was over. The process would then repeat once they clicked on the next video.
Google knew that tech was good enough to adequately supply all those homes with capable internet. The problem was that the ISP's just didn't want to spend the money to upgrade their infrastructure to actually do it. ISP's in the US aren't nearly as competitive as they should be. The major suppliers all sort of had a gentleman's agreement to not constantly one up each other in regards to connection quality and speeds for obvious cost reasons. So seeing all the ISP's basically sitting on their hands... Google announced and began installing Google Fiber.
And boy was Google Fiber a resounding success. Having seen what Google Fiber would offer, those ISP's immediately crapped their pants, and likely their hands as well seeing as they'd been sitting on them. Once it was clear that those ISP's had been scared into upgrading their infrastructure in order to compete with Google Fiber... Google immediately did an about face, and canceled any further development. Their primary objective having been a success, with many times more households now being able to adequately watch YouTube content.
The missed step here is that had Google decided to actually go through with Google Fiber, and roll it out nationwide as they alluded to early on. Google would currently be the de facto ISP for much of the US. If such were the case, they could then wall off certain segments of it for themselves... Such as gaming. Even back then Google was well aware of this, as more than a couple of consulting firms told them so. Even as it pertains to game streaming. Despite the quality not being what it is now, it was still obvious that it would head that direction in the future. Despite Google being aware of all this, they still decided to exit the market anyway.
Had they not done so. Google would own the infrastructure to dominate the game streaming industry. MS and Amazon could own all the cloud services they wanted, and it still wouldn't matter. If Googled ultimately controlled the internet pipe that fed into everyone's home, they literally held the cards that mattered. Assuming they developed all that and integrated it with game streaming in mind. Game streaming right now would probably be significantly further ahead than where it is. Perhaps even at almost imperceptible levels from traditional gaming by most people.
Had that actually happened, Google would've been far more likely to get away with such brazen tactics, like charging for a subscription as well as for the games.
Had Google made such a serious investment earlier, instead of focusing only on ad revenue from YouTube. They might've been a major player in gaming today. At least compared to what they are currently.
Log in to comment