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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

I think you miss a really important use-case for stadia and cloud based gaming: infrequent players.

Such players usually use consoles, which are no better than cloud based gaming for forcing updates to content.

I jump into a match of apex legends every 3-4 weeks, maybe I get an afternoon to play because my partner has decided to go out with her friends.

What usually happens is that I launch my PlayStation and it spends the whole evening applying updates.

It’s asinine, maddeningly frustrating.

if I could pick up a controller and play: I’d be much happier.

FD: I worked on a game that came to stadia and knew about it before it’s public launch.

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People who play 1 match of 1 game 1 time per month seems like bad demographic to target for a gaming service.

Well; One afternoon of gaming every month and a match here and there.

Why do you feel that this is a bad demographic?

It’s basically perfect because people like me can’t really justify a console let alone a full fledged PC gaming setup and all the work that would entail.

Streaming services lose money the more they are used, the worst customer is the one who plays a lot and the best one is the one who doesn’t play at all.

Infrequent use is really ideal, and it would have suited me better than the alternatives too.

Why can't you justify a console? The cheapest Xbox is 300 dollars. If the console lasts 5 years, that's similar to paying 5 dollars a month for a streaming service.

Sticker shock, and the 360 is 2 generations old.

If I want to play God of War a few hours a month then paying 700eur to enter or 75eur and a Netflix style subscription? Which is more reasonable sounding if you're not devoting much time.

Put it this way: Why do people use cloud based hosting over buying their hardware?

Mostly it's because they convert the one time cost to an amortised cost based on usage.

360? The cheapest Xbox is the current gen Xbox Series S, at £249.99.

And you can also finance that for £20.99/mo for two years.

And you can also re-sell it when you get tired of it.

consoles are very affordable really (compared to the cost of a PC), but they do share a lot of the same problems as cloud services. Constant updates, little control. The PS5 interface is sadly filled with ads.

People who pay a monthly subscription but barely use the service? I would think that would be the best demographic to target, at least from Google's perspective.

why not? think about how much you can overcommit hardware to such a demographic

FWIW, your PlayStation will update on its own if left in rest mode.

There is a setting for this and it seems to work some of the time.

As soon as there is an OS update it doesn't progress (which, granted, is uncommon) and it only works for the last game you played. So if I play GTA and Apex Legends, then only one would get the update, and only if there is no OS update, and only if I use rest mode.

A lot of circumstances where it isn't going to help.

yeah I would have loved an all you can eat stadya paid by hour played and was super hyped before the payment model became public.

then microsoft came out with the pc version of their game pass.

guess who's got my money.

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