Amazon AppStream
aws.amazon.com
aws.amazon.com
Not to mention if you ever need to get off of Appstream there is no migration path, because you used their SDK to build your game.
So there is a high level of lock-in, and its introducing a cost structure that is coupled to the usage of the app. If using Appstream helps your apps be more successful, then it also helps you give more of your profit margin to Amazon.
It's basically OnLive for mobile but you bring your own distribution channels.
This isn't going to compete with casual games you would natively run on devices for a fixed deployment cost.
Sure, those who would love to play these games without chasing hardware will, but I can't imagine that's worth the additional, continual cost of rendering the game in the cloud and piping it over the network.
- You don't want users to have to download gigabytes of graphics to play your game.
- Your users don't have powerful enough computers/devices to run your game
- You don't want users to have access to your binaries (Maybe your app is some proprietary business app).
What I can't see, however, is a huge hole in the marketplace that is underserved which would justify the additional risk. This is not a "service," because it fundamentally changes your business model.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/11/05/mozilla-otoy-and-au...
But I imagine (as with online gaming systems) that the experience is much more like... server loads the necessary rendering resources into the devices RAM/storage and then gameplay occurs the same as if files were loaded from a CD/other media.
I'm sure you could learn more by digging deeper but I imagine it is something more along those lines -- advanced API for a rendering engine.
I believe that's exactly how Onlive works.
If streamers could maintain 30ms of network latency then it's just a minor difference from the system baseline.
If the streamers are smart they could colocate with the game servers. Then that 30ms of network latency is there regardless, home system or streaming system. It effectively adds no lag for streaming.
John Carmack made a comment that he could send a packet to europe faster then he could send a pixel to a screen: http://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-fas...
[anecdote] We've licensed our CAD software to have 100 "seats" available at any time. We also (try to) reserve that much hardware to be available. We only ever see maybe a 5-10% utilization throughout the semester with ~200% utilization in the last 3 weeks of the semester (When util >100%, users are queued). That's a lot of waste and still isn't acceptable to the majority of our professors and student body. While it'd be great if we could retask that hardware to justify its cost when not in use, we simply can't. We need that hardware to be available for these applications at a minute's notice.
I can see this being a huge win for education or independent studios who are just starting out.
Here's a pretty cool video demonstration of its on tablets and TVs use prior to acquisition:
I was initially excited, wondering how we could leverage this, but now I'm perplexed by: "currently supports streaming applications from Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2."
I would have thought Linux would have been the optimal server environment too.
And windows still owns the PC gaming industry, though that it changing
On top of that the App-V/XenApp packaging suite are top notch and provide avenues for enterprise integrations. (I'm making a big leap assuming it's built on one of them, but it doesn't really make sense to build from scratch, as interoperability/portability would be a hassle)
That's >1,500 a year PER USER for a typical business app
No way this is going somewhere at the current fare imo.
What I mean by fair price is that this is not an easy thing that they're proposing -- enough bandwidth and hardware to play a game. It may cost more than you would expect to deliver a high quality experience. However, the value to consumer isn't there for 83 cents an hour.
They REALLY need a killer app here to demonstrate the use case where this is worth the price. You need an application that has very high computation needs that is being used on a platform with limited computation ability BUT has a solid internet connection (preferably low-latency, if you want it for "twitch" type gaming, but not necessary in all cases). The example in their video is a FPS. I don't think that's a good example, as it is way too expensive for that market.
Is it good for turn-based games like poker or even tic-tac-toe?
I'm sold.