Gaming as a service is something that literally no one but corporations are interested. It’s the latest evil after the attempted murder of physical copies.
This is the kind of nonsense the so called AAA companies are trying to force on their customers: https://mobile.twitter.com/anthemgame/status/104320071518584...
Consoles are exceedingly cheap nowadays. Even on the high end, it's a $400 (PS4P) cost spread over 4 or more years, which can work out to as low as $10/month. I haven't seen any "production" cloud streaming service that cheap; some can be cheaper if you don't play a lot, as they bill per hour of active time. Even Xbox Live Gold/PS+ isn't cheaper than that, and that's a FAR simpler service to run versus cloud streaming.
Services like Stadia or xCloud will cater well to the casual gaming crowd; 10 hours or less per month, not seriously invested. That's not where the money is at (in consoles, its DEFINITELY where the money is at in mobile). That's the flaw of all of these services; there's no way they can be offered at a cost competitive rate to running code inside the house, and that's not even considering internet speeds. The funny thing is, at least in my experience, it's the "serious" gamers who have the best internet and thus would be most eligible for these services, yet would also be most likely to want the best quality experience (audio, visual, input lag).
These are the gamers that would gladly pay this month to play the newest games on a virtual console, rather than pay up-front.
But Stadia actually interests me for a different reason: I would love to be able to play my games on different devices at different times, especially away from my house. Phone, tablet, laptop, home computer, and Android TV box... I would play those games on those devices at different times.
If my PS4 could stream to them all reliably, especially when I'm at my in-laws house and my PS4 is at home, I'd be doing it.
Stadia is basically promising that.
Microsoft did announce that "Xbox subscription" service at some point. I'd challenge you to start at store.microsoft.com and find it; I can't. They probably still offer it somewhere, but its not a priority for their sales, and I seriously doubt it represents even a small portion of their console ownership. It was an experiment.
The issue is, everyone is focused so much on the advantages of Stadia-like services we forget all the INHERENT downsides. There will be downsides. Of course it would be great to play any game on any device at low latency for low cost. This WILL NOT be even CLOSE to any future we will experience. Here's what will happen:
- Gaming exclusivity is still a problem and only getting worse (see everything going on with the Epic Games Store; even on a single platform like PC there's still extreme fragmentation). (Very) Arguably the best games of this generation are on PS4. Sony is killing it with their first party studios. Stadia and xCloud won't get these; so we'll have to adopt multiple streaming services, with varying degrees of cost, quality, and end-device support. Note: This is identical to our situation today! Fragmentation has always existed in gaming, and it always will; streaming will make it worse, not better.
- End-Device support and quality of experience are tightly linked. Google may have the engineering chops and scale to get it right; they know the browser, they have deep networking and latency expertise, and they have DCs all around the world. But even that may not be enough. Game streaming would most deeply improve the gaming experience on the literal devices that are the least suited to actually offer an enjoyable experience (tablets, phones, wireless devices in exotic locations). The funny thing is, game streaming would most impact the ability to offer great graphics on these devices which traditionally couldn't do it, but gamers CARE WAY MORE about latency, they just haven't ever had to worry about it because we've always had local processing. Check out some of the Stadia first impressions [1]; they're hopeful, but also it's very clear that even in the best situations this technology degrades A/V performance substantially while still having issues with latency.
- No one is discussing cost. Google won't touch the subject. Even if they get everything else perfect, even if the experience is fantastic and identical to local processing (it won't be), I very strongly believe this is the single point that will kill these services. This is why there are other comments in this post which say "the only people who care about this are the corporations, gamers don't actually care". There is ZERO CHEAPER WAY to deliver processing to a consumer than shipping silicon to their house. We've already seen this with cloud transitions at large companies; it ends up being more expensive, but they don't have to manage large operations teams. Well, I don't manage anything with my PS4; I bought it and it sits on my tv stand, so that's out of the question. But the moment you introduce DCs and global networks, now Google/MS have to pay for dozens of engineers to support this thing that was previously just dark silicon in my living room. It CANT be cheaper. At best, they may charge a flat fee then hope the number of casual gamers (<10 hours per month) outweigh the number of serious gamers. At worse, and most likely, they'll support it with advertisements, micro transactions, or degraded quality. Actually, in Google's case they'd probably just shut it down.
- Speaking of cost: game studios are fucked. How do they get paid in this new subscription-based system where there's a dozen players taking their 5% tax at every turn? There's something beautiful about a simple 70/30 revenue share for a product sold on Steam, even if the tax is high. With subscription game streaming, maybe it's based on time spent in game? Look forward to more games that inject insane filler content just to make sure you HAVE to spend 40 hours in it. Look forward to more microtransactions and DLC that aren't included in the subscription. This is the music industry all over again; Spotify "saved" the music industry from a piracy epidemic, but today's reality of royalty payments is still pretty shitty. The gaming industry doesn't have a widespread piracy problem; the game subscription debate is just technologists (corporations AND geeks) inventing a problem where there isn't one, while the artists, who already don't make enough, who work at companies that are seriously struggling (outside of the very few "winners" like Epic or Valve), silently raise their hands and sheepishly say "team, what about us?"
- Let's just ignore Nintendo, right? Creator of the best games in history, the only major player seriously committed to creating experiences that span all age ranges, including some of the best games this generation, and they have shown zero interest in game streaming. Good on them.
Screw cloud game streaming, screw game subscriptions. I'm fed up with the technology giants constantly seeking out their 10% "service tithe" in every possible vertical they can find, while fucking over consumers and artists in the process. Microsoft and Sony are fine; they recognize that they need investment in this area, but I truly believe they actually love and support gaming, gamers, and game developers and don't want to see a world where we get screwed over. As always, its Google who should be ashamed; they're forcing the hand of the industry to invest in this, but we all know they won't succeed (they can't even build a messaging app, they had to BUY a video streaming platform and they've proceeded to really screw it up, they expect to create a compelling set of first party game studios with no experience?) Google doesn't actually care about anything except Eyes On Their Products, and they'll do anything to stay relevant.
I'm interested, assuming a reasonable price and performance level. Not having to have gaming PC plus being able to easily play a bunch of new games for a few hours without shelling out $60+ each are both things that sound interesting to me.
Then again I think the last physical game I bought was Europa Universalis III a decade ago, so physical copies haven't really mattered to me for a long time.
The gaming monetisation sphere has come a long way since EU 3
The closest we got (if I remember correctly) was Darksiders 2 launching on OnLive at the same time as PC, but it was also a rental game rather than being part of their Netflix-style subscription PlayPack.
LAN parties are great, but you don't need super-portable if you're packing for an all-day/overnight trip anyway. A computer that fits in a duffel bag is fine, and plenty of "luggable" gaming laptops qualify.
With current geo-synchronous satellites, correct. With the upcoming low earth orbit internet satellite constellations of which there are at least 3 announced and the spacex starlink constellation is literally launching their first batch of 60 satellites this week, this should be doable.
Also, lots of people prefer digital copies of games. Just look at the digital sales vs physical sales for Nintendo games which are generally available for both. I presume this is the case for other systems as well.
What technology were you playing?