Game Streaming Services - Stadia, Geforce Now, xCloud, PS Now

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Luthair

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Blitz said:
On the surface, this really isn't for me (or many people on this board)... But the potential is there. Especially if they start acquiring studios and exclusive rights, pair that with having an all-encompassing streaming service & environment outside of the actual games. Goodness.

I do like the idea of throwing a Chromecast & controller in a carry on and having this for traveling, assuming internet speeds in hotels/airbnbs/your in laws etc.
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I thought that before the GDC announcement, but it got me thinking - wouldn't it be nice to not have to repeatedly buy a noisy box to put in my living room, or a noisy box with expensive hardware under my desk? Obviously predicated streaming services working well but if they do make it and have a good model....

spronk said:
most hotels unfortunately lock HDMI ports nowadays and/or their wifi has portal logins which doesn't always work with dongle devices, but yeah good for airbnb/relatives/etc

bandwidth will be an issue though, someone calculated like 65 hours of game play will take up 1TB of data at 4k. thats my monthly cap :( I'd probably install it at my in laws though and just play the freebie 1080p games when i'm bored
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They don't point it out but they assume CBR instead of variable which would reduce it by some amount. I would expect that the speeds they list are to account for peak moments since you don't want your game to stop & buffer. Doesn't Netflix suggest similar speeds?

Mist said:
I'm talking LIVE products.

No one has killed more live products than Google.
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Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. The thing with services is that they're inexpensive to launch (compared to physical objects) but they do have an ongoing cost, at a certain point it does make sense to continue to maintain it. I'm not an accountant, but since this has a hardware cost if they cancel it they'd need to write it off (I think?) which may string it out.
 
Mist

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Luthair said:
Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. The thing with services is that they're inexpensive to launch (compared to physical objects) but they do have an ongoing cost, at a certain point it does make sense to continue to maintain it. I'm not an accountant, but since this has a hardware cost if they cancel it they'd need to write it off (I think?) which may string it out.
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I'm sure Google can figure out other things to do with the hardware.

Also the hardware is going to be obsolete in 3-4 years anyway.
 
Mist

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Ravishing

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Mist said:
You have to buy the games too.

The only way this platform makes ANY sense is if you pay 15 bucks a month and get all the games.
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There really isn't enough data on the game prices atm.
I assume there will be a mix of options on game pricing, including (eventually) some free-to-play with MTX, purchasing from 1 platform and having access to other platforms, and also Stadia exclusive purchases.

But the Stadia investment is the controller, which opens up access to the platform. I'll decide purchasing games later and may not even buy a game for a while.
 
Judge_Mental

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If stadia was free games to try in a monthly rotation combined with a purchase option, or a premium service (more$ per month) to keep games longer. Yea that would probably print money.
At the very least this will get Google a lot of user data for more ad revenues.
If it's just buy games locked to this service at full pop, that's probably going to die after a year.
Either way, it's a cheap price to try out streaming video games on the shitter at work through company wifi.
 
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ver_21

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Kiki said:
Bandwidth wont' be the real issue. Latency will.
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I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem for single player on a Fios connection. I am not sure how it will play out on Comcast or similar cable ISPs. Their system degrades with concurrent usage, doesn't it?

For multiplayer, I wonder if they will figure some average possible latency and force it on everyone. So like, even if you have an 8ms ping, you're going to get 100.
 
Kiki

Kiki

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Most of the time yes. I have 1k up/down, and low latency on fiber, but I hit latency on my ISP's interconnects with other providers. So you are kinda at the mercy of people above your ISP. And for people without, well you gonna get fucked. DSL technology naturally introduces latency, and I imagine copper cable is the same way.

They were simulating 100ms at the demo and people said it felt like ass. The bandwidth is totally doable, but latency will ruin everything. It's not like a tv show that can pre-buffer.
 
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GuardianX

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ver_21 said:
I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem for single player on a Fios connection. I am not sure how it will play out on Comcast or similar cable ISPs. Their system degrades with concurrent usage, doesn't it?

For multiplayer, I wonder if they will figure some average possible latency and force it on everyone. So like, even if you have an 8ms ping, you're going to get 100.
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Have you ever played a game over your own network using Steam in-home streaming and had a lag spike?

Oh...it's noticable
 
Folanlron

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6-8months till dead, cause at that point Google will realize how fucked the US Internet is(which they should know already), and it will fail...
 
Mist

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Folanlron said:
6-8months till dead, cause at that point Google will realize how fucked the US Internet is(which they should know already), and it will fail...
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Google owns tons of dark fiber.

Maybe this is all part of some long-play.
 
Folanlron

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Mist said:
Google owns tons of dark fiber.

Maybe this is all part of some long-play.
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You ever wonder why is there so much fiber optic cable ran all over the place, but no one is using it. Those "dark" fibers are garbage that were mostly built before the first Internet Bubble pop, the cables are trash compared too newer lines, it is not worth even trying too fire a stream down them.
 
GuardianX

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Mist said:
Google owns tons of dark fiber.

Maybe this is all part of some long-play.
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Yes, internet gaming, the long game of dark fiber. Knowing this deep information I can with certainty predict the driving force that prompted Elon Musk to push his sat internet is some revolutionary new PvP MMO with a deep focus on crafting and guild interactions.
 
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GuardianX

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ver_21 said:
Haven't tried it---what can cause the local spike?
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Having a family.

Anything that increases traffic over your local network. Sure it SHOULDN'T matter since your home network, if it is recent, can handle a gig of data pretty easily but from my experience playing things like Darksiders 3 or Darksouls 3 was pretty insane over in-home streaming.

The thing that will kill the experience is lag spikes when you aren't expecting a lag spike and even on a local network there is lag. I mean you are talking roughly 23000 kbps for steam in-home streaming on moderate settings.
 
Mist

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GuardianX said:
Having a family.

Anything that increases traffic over your local network. Sure it SHOULDN'T matter since your home network, if it is recent, can handle a gig of data pretty easily but from my experience playing things like Darksiders 3 or Darksouls 3 was pretty insane over in-home streaming.

The thing that will kill the experience is lag spikes when you aren't expecting a lag spike and even on a local network there is lag. I mean you are talking roughly 23000 kbps for steam in-home streaming on moderate settings.
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The spikes could also be a performance issue on the host machine. Some stupid background task that would cause a minor hitch while playing real-time on the desktop could cause more significant hiccups as each application, driver and OS layer involved in the streaming is impacted by the hiccup at a different priority level.
 
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