Editorial Impressions of Google's Project Stream: Game Streaming in 2019 Actually Seems Feasible

[Vayra86]

Thousands of dollars for a GPU? GTX1070 can be had for less than 300 bucks sometimes. Now let's wait until Project Stream starts charging you for every hour spent in game and then we will compare prices
Heck, i'd rather build small form factor Ryzen 2400G machine and game on it without dedicated graphics card then rely on some streaming service.

420 pounds and you game on it as much as you want, whenever you want.

I guess some people live in an alternate reality or something. Prices go up by 10-30% and people think PC gaming is dead, local gaming must make way for streamed services on subscription basis, and every publisher has left the game to cater to the mobile market.

Meanwhile, its just same shit different day. There's no radical change. Just a diverse market.

 

[jabbadap]

Uhm not that I'm in anyway interested in game streaming services. But Geforce NOW is beta here on Europe too.

 

[R0H1T]

I guess some people live in an alternate reality or something. Prices go up by 10-30% and people think PC gaming is dead, local gaming must make way for streamed services on subscription basis, and every publisher has left the game to cater to the mobile market.

Meanwhile, its just same shit different day. There's no radical change. Just a diverse market.

You might not be someone who's interested in this but there's potentially 5 billion "connected people" who might be. Just stating the possibilities & so long as there's $ to be made, this kind of "innovation" will find its backers. Whether it's the next "wave" or just another fad we'll have to wait & see, but no reason why 1Gbps broadband shouldn't be put to greater use, I mean there's only so many 8k cat videos one watch

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Thousands of dollars for a GPU? GTX1070 can be had for less than 300 bucks sometimes. Now let's wait until Project Stream starts charging you for every hour spent in game and then we will compare prices
Heck, i'd rather build small form factor Ryzen 2400G machine and game on it without dedicated graphics card then rely on some streaming service.

420 pounds and you game on it as much as you want, whenever you want.

The 2400G is quite capable too. I own one, and while I now have a dGPU, I was amazed at how well the 2400G could play newer titles, even if it had to be at 720p and medium-low settings.

You might not be someone who's interested in this but there's potentially 5 billion "connected people" who might be. Just stating the possibilities & so long as there's $ to be made, this kind of "innovation" will find it's backers. Whether it's the next "wave" or just another fad we'll have to wait & see, but no reason why 1Gbps broadband shouldn't be put to greater use, I mean there's only so many 8k cat videos one watch

I guess it depends on how many people have a 1Gbps connection. The average speed in the US is 100Mbps. I could get 1Gbps where I live, but I don’t feel it’s worth the extra expense for our household needs. It would roughly double our cost.

 

[R0H1T]

A gigabit connection is just an example, the point is - if there's Google, MS, Sony(?) pouring money into this in the future - then we will see even cheaper broadband, 5G etc. Basically something like this justifies the expense of network expansion, which is a far costlier & longer term venture as compared to other forms of tech investment.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

It could. I think telecoms are more limited by old infrastructure. They’d probably have to run a lot of new cable to get 1Gbps out to their customers the way it works now. Google dumped billions into their fiberhood project and even they have hit the pause button to see if they can get wireless going instead. Curious how that will do, regarding latency and all. The last city I lived in had a wireless-only distribution model, and it was not a very popular service despite being competitively priced.

 

[Vayra86]

The target audience for this stuff is the casual gamer; the audience that, right now, is gaming on a laptop with a wifi connection and wondering why he lags so much - in LOCAL gaming over the internet. The better half doesnt even know a difference between low FPS stutter and lag.

The rest of the target audience is the console gamer... that already has access to cheap gaming hardware that surpasses a streamed experience..

So what is left? Some middle ground audience with no money that does want to game and hasnt fallen for smartphones. Yeah.. no. Not gonna fly

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

And consider services like Xbox Game Pass, where $10/mo gets you access to a lot of local content. And then there’s PSnow that already streams to console or PC and offers local PS2/4 content on a PS4.

 

[Shambles1980]

I do not think streaming games as a service will ever be viable.
hell even emulating old 8 bit games poorly which results in small input lag is horrible, Input lag is a massive factor in gaming..
You could possibly get away with streaming games like tropico or the sims in single player where a few ms of input lag isnt going to ruin the game, but trying to play anything else?? I cannot think of a situation where it would be at all viable.

in this day and age input lag is not a viable trade off for any thing.
you would be better off with a low powered pc that can only run the game at low details 1080p and hit a constant 30fps than suffer with input lag which i cannot see being better than an average of 25-50ms on a good day.
and most probably will be pushing 200ms or at least spiking that high.

 

[Axaion]

Why yes, id love to have less ownership of something i pay for, sure.

Can i rent a kidney while were at it too?, so when i havent paid for it at the exact moment i need to update my sub for it, my kidneys fail?, that would be nice, i guess.

 

[erocker]

AAA games in 2019 are not very good due to publishers. 1080p? Sure! 20 years ago.

 

[TheGuruStud]

All games are going to be point and click, now, or these idiots are smoking crack? Rob Ford must be inviting everyone to his parties.

 

[dinmaster]

I use my 1070 with a nvidia shield tv on a gigabit lan connection playing overwatch and I can tell you the lag drives me nuts. just that half a second to one second lag... If it's a game that didn't require fast input I would be happy. I would rate the services by input lag, just like monitors have ms lag ratings.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I use my 1070 with a nvidia shield tv on a gigabit lan connection playing overwatch and I can tell you the lag drives me nuts. just that half a second to one second lag... If it's a game that didn't require fast input I would be happy. I would rate the services by input lag, just like monitors have ms lag ratings.

Yeah, I experienced something similar on my PS4 pro, using AC wireless to stream to a PC. Some games were fine, but The Golf Club 2 was literally impossible to play. I couldn’t swing a club at all, much less with any sort of consistency or accuracy.

 

[Jism]

If you succesfully want to use this; you need fiber with a <1ms respons on AVG.

 

[15th Warlock]

Been doing this with my Nvidia Shield for over two years now, how is this front page news?

 

[VSG]

Been doing this with my Nvidia Shield for over two years now, how is this front page news?

This isn't referring to in-house streaming.

 

[Hockster]

Not sure what turns me off more, it's only 1080P or that Ubisoft is involved.

 

[GreiverBlade]

as long as "game streaming" service don't become the norm and force uninterested player to use them ...

they can do whatever they want ...

 

[silentbogo]

I believe this is going into the right direction. The main problem with other online game streaming services is lack of data centers, and some still managed to make it work.
I've tried OnLive before it was bought by Sony, and even on my then shitty and unstable 25Mbit/s it was smooth and perfect, even though the nearest datacenter was somewhere in UK [!!!!] (routing from Ukraine is probably as bad as US or Australia). Played Witcher 2.

Amazon AWS has very little presence in eastern europe (hence Bethesda online services suck so much), and Microsoft is still doing baby steps in this direction. Playstation Now has no local coverage either, and Nvidia's Geforce Now is currently limited to Shield users (PC/MAC users are on a waitlist).

If anyone can do it properly and on a large scale - it's Google. Can't wait to test it on my 100Mbit/s connection.

This isn't referring to in-house streaming.

He's not talking in-house streaming. Shield TV was the first platform for GeForce Now streaming services (it's still in beta, but supposedly it will remain free with Shield TV).
How do you think it plays all of those AAA games, like RoTR or Prey, on a puny tablet hardware?

Which is much faster than most American's download speeds. A large portion of people still use dial-up, because there's no alternative.

That's an american problem, not a streaming problem. Write a petition to whoever is your next president gonna be, sue AT&T, Comcast and others. As soon as you break the monopoly on comms services and smaller companies get access to local exchange networks at liberal prices, it'll become as cheap and as fast as everywhere else in the world.

 

[natr0n]

Imagine geting lag on a single player game IMAGINE.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Imeh.

 

[killferd]

game streaming is akin to media streaming as of now with so many services cropping up. so yeah thx am not gonna pay monthly when i know i may or may not have the time to play over and above the cost of system i already purchased.
there are plenty of other reasons but, most of all its sad that single player gaming is relegated to back-foot.
can't wait for cyberpunk and metro soon enough.

 

[Blueberries]

Streaming is the future, whether people like it or not. Nobody is going to want to pay $1000 for an XBOX.

Assuming they offer this at an affordable price, getting new releases for a monthly fee is going to be VERY attractive. If you can afford a high-end computer, maybe not, but to the vast majority of mainstream gamers, yes.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

When has any console been $1000? Even as streaming advances, so does the shrinking of hardware. Today, an A12X is about as powerful as the launch XboxOne, all while consuming a fraction of the energy. If consoles go all digital, they will get much smaller and could continue to serve the market at $400 or less.