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Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#41

Post by Kiro »

Xelbair wrote: post #17

Absolutely pointless. without client and server side input prediction you get huge input lag - way above tolerable ranges. with input prediction you get annoyed players that their character doesn't do what they want. Plus with multiplayer games you get extra lag on top of that. And lets not forget about local input lag. Transfer speed requirements are sky-high. Also - can i just own something? i don't want to perpetu…

John Carmack is of a completely different opinion and if there's someone I trust regarding this stuff it's him.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#42

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

gravypod wrote: post #26

It's the next evolution of DRM. First you owned your games, then you owned a license to your games, now you will rent your games. It's going to happen at some point and there won't be much fighting this from AAA studios. "You mean it will be 100% impossible for piracy to exist?" In addition, if Google is smart, they'll also be building their own game engine and tooling to run along with it. Google will market this en…

> Any multiplayer game, in their architecture, will have no latency

...except all the latency between the player and the game of course.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#43

Post by stenioaraujo »

soulnothing wrote: post #11

Having been mobile / traveling a lot. I tried using multiple cloud gaming services. I didn't want to lug around a gaming laptop. The biggest issue I've had is internet. Outside of my own home the internet has been slow, laggy, or compressed the image to much. It's generally unplayable. In between being able to afford a gaming device. I used parsec, and rented a machine to play games. FPS online multi player games wer…

What do you mean with "I... rented a machine to play games"? Is it a online service? Would you mind talking a little bit more about that?

Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#45

Post by saynay »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #22
Xelbair wrote: post #17

Absolutely pointless. without client and server side input prediction you get huge input lag - way above tolerable ranges. with input prediction you get annoyed players that their character doesn't do what they want. Plus with multiplayer games you get extra lag on top of that. And lets not forget about local input lag. Transfer speed requirements are sky-high. Also - can i just own something? i don't want to perpetu…

It's input compensation they need, not input prediction. In other words, for every button press sent to the server, it should also send the frame time the user was seeing when they pressed the button. The server then applies hit detection / whatever for the input at that time rather than the current time. So you'll see a visual glitch as the world jumps to "what should have been", but that's a lot better than you mis…

"Since the controller is independently connected, it can have a different latency than the computer."

Not necessarily. Chromecast and the like already does side-channel communication to devices on the same network. Its how my phone can know that my TV is streaming something sent by my PC.

The controller could be sending input commands directly to the server, while also talking directly to the video streaming device.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#46

Post by dpcan »

dyeje wrote: post #24

I don't think it will work for multiple reasons. 1. Google doesn't have gaming in their corporate DNA. They will commit a bunch of faux pas that will alienate the gaming community. 2. Streaming games adds latency. Latency problems ruin the experience. 3. Gamers are a very fickle community and if they don't feel your company 'gets' them, they will not engage with you.

1) You might be able to say that about MS before the XBox arrived. Also, Google has always been "playful" so to speak. Changing their logos, adding a game right into the no-connection screen of their browser. They may be ready to go big here.

2) I can't imagine this going out to the public with latency issues. Netflix can stream video smooth as silk to millions very nicely. Streaming the game will be the same thing, we are just getting the video. Sending keyboard and mouse input should be trivial in respects to how intense video streaming is, so I'm not sure why there would be any latency.

3) These particularly picky gamers are a small subset of the community. You can choose to listen to them or not. There are millions of gamers who don't stream, who don't watch streams, who game on their own, who don't care if the files for the games are on their computer, etc. And these gamers want popular titles on their Chromebooks. Google is about to make that happen it seems.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#48

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

A example of a solution without a problem.

Hardcore gamers, and by that I mean people that spend a lot of time playing graphically intense games, have their own gaming PC's and keep up with hardware. So they aren't the customer, at least immediately, maybe in 2-4 years.

Anyone that has a current-gen console already has access to play most any AAA title game that comes out, unless it is exclusive to the "other" platform, which means it won't be on Stadia either. They aren't really the customer, at least immediately.

The boasting of Stadia GPU vs current gen consoles doesn't mean much to people playing on consoles. They already bought into a average common denominator of graphics capabilities. So they aren't the customer immediately, maybe when another generation of console comes out.

So who is the customer? Gamers playing non-graphically intense games? Why would they care? Maybe the killer feature here is being able to change devices (tablet, phone, Chromecast) and pick up where you left off. At what price point though is that worth it to someone?

Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#49

Post by unwind »

Kiro wrote: post #40
dyeje wrote: post #24

I don't think it will work for multiple reasons. 1. Google doesn't have gaming in their corporate DNA. They will commit a bunch of faux pas that will alienate the gaming community. 2. Streaming games adds latency. Latency problems ruin the experience. 3. Gamers are a very fickle community and if they don't feel your company 'gets' them, they will not engage with you.

John Carmack is of a different opinion regarding 2.

This (repeated) comment would carry more weight if it included a citation, i.e. a link to the source.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think of the Google Stadia?

#50

Post by DCKing »

dyeje wrote: post #24

I don't think it will work for multiple reasons. 1. Google doesn't have gaming in their corporate DNA. They will commit a bunch of faux pas that will alienate the gaming community. 2. Streaming games adds latency. Latency problems ruin the experience. 3. Gamers are a very fickle community and if they don't feel your company 'gets' them, they will not engage with you.

1 and 3 are basically the same reason are they not? Yet corporations like EA and Ubisoft are still very successful despite having famously horrible reputations amongs the "community". Moreover, Google looks willing to fix any lack of expertise/culture/"DNA" just by acquisitions (if such a thing is possible).

As for 2, Digital Foundry tested how bad the latency of Google's services was (though not in a home setting), and were able to show that it's actually on par with playing on an Xbox One X locally.

I'm not thrilled about this development, but I don't think these are reasons they'll be unsuccessful.

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