Live data from Hacker News

Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

theverge.com

181–190 of 577 posts

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#181
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The natural business model will be a mix between subscription services and free to play games with micro transactions. Microsoft (and others like EA) is already moving in that direction with game pass (monthly subscription gets you all first party games plus partner games). The biggest concern is going to be internet availability and data caps. I tried the beta for Project Stream (now Stadia) this past wi…

I agree with your comments. I'd also add Stadia could operate a traditional platform/store model as well. It'd be a big ask for big publishers to launch their huge-budget flagship content straight into a content bundle. But you could have them sell access to people with Stadia accounts same as they sell physical/digital copies to Xbox/PS/PC owners.

Imagine simply moving all hardware support issues "in-house" or at least trading in all of the pimply teenagers with hardware issues for a single team of engineers working for one of the smartest companies in the world.

The vast majority of your support department can be let go.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#182
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed is not the (main) problem. It's latency and jitter. With the last one especially bad on mobile networks. To get at most 1ms of additional delay you also need a datacenter every 300 km.

Google operates tiny little datacenters in every ISP POP in America. That is why the video I just watched on Youtube in Oakland came from some place 2ms away even though Google's nearest real datacenter is in Oregon.

Video files (even live stream HTTP based protocols like HLS) can be cached very easily on CDN infrastructure.

However, a gaming session means to have a dedicated daemon running for you somewhere. I doubt this can be deployed anywhere on the spot, but perhaps they have some amazing technology for that.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#183
post #11

The computer scientist in me is giddy with excitement. If it is as good as it sounds, we are in a new age of gaming. Kudos Google.

So, I work in the games industry and I don't think this will be successful. This has been tried before (multiple times), gamers haven't wanted streaming services. PC gamers already have Steam and this doesn't offer anything compelling over using Steam, and more casual gamers are playing on Ps4 or Switch or mobile. Also, the hardcore PC gamers are never going to accept the latency associated with playing on remote ser…

Let the market decides it.

I would definitely try this on some quirky little games that I love to watch the streamers play, but too lazy to download. If the play could start in minutes, I would try it.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#184
post #160

Rewrote this a few times. Overall I think this would be really bad for the gaming world. Not buying consoles would be nice, but the natural business model will be ads or pay per hour or pay per MB. This is going to further drive the industry to towards mass multiplayer and grindy games I think. More accessible but worse content. Indie shops would probably struggle even more under this model. The cost per user will va…

There's the major difference that you can't "pirate" a single-player game that is only available remotely, and that you can access such games remotely from any hardware. So it could result in a renaissance of the classic AAA 3D single-player games, perhaps.

You already cant pirate current generation of console games.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#185

I participated in the beta and was pleasantly surprised to see how the entire experience came together. I only experienced one small technical issue. The game runs in real time on Google's servers. If you have some lag on your network, the client will drop all the frames during that time. Instead I expected behavior like Youtube where you will see a small loader and the game will continue before the lag started. This…

Thanks for explaining your experience!

There's a lot of us out here who are curious how this thing works and the design tradeoffs.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#186
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious: Why'd you go with a 2080Ti and not just a 2080 or 1080? Did you just want the RTX support or did you just want the absolute best possible GPU for gaming regardless of price?

I can't answer for OP, but I went with a 2080ti because it's cheaper than purchasing a 2060/2070/2080 now and buying a 2080ti later. If price wasn't an issue I'd have gone with the best possible Titan RTX.

That doesn't make much sense. If you buy a 2070 now in a few years the successor 2170 (or whatever) will be more powerful than the current 2080ti and cheaper.

Unless you have unlimited budget I find that buying cheaper cards more often will give you better average performance.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#187
post #73

So, who wants to make a bet on how long this "experiment" will last? I'm thinking 2 years before Google gets tired of it and abandons it, and another year before it's taken behind the shed.

This comment has gotten so predictable and tedious on this site; I really don't get it. Google launches products. Some of them fail. That's life. Depreciation schedules for cloud services are one thing. Consumer products are another.

I think if we added them up, probably the majority of Google products have failed, no? It’s unusual.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#188
post #11

The computer scientist in me is giddy with excitement. If it is as good as it sounds, we are in a new age of gaming. Kudos Google.

So, I work in the games industry and I don't think this will be successful. This has been tried before (multiple times), gamers haven't wanted streaming services. PC gamers already have Steam and this doesn't offer anything compelling over using Steam, and more casual gamers are playing on Ps4 or Switch or mobile. Also, the hardcore PC gamers are never going to accept the latency associated with playing on remote ser…

This doesn't offer anything more compelling over using Steam? Excuse me?

At this point I see comments like yours in here (from "games industry" insiders) and I see horse breeders decrying the car. "It takes gas instead of grass, it'll never work!"

Please.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#189

I really hope the latency we've seen in the live demo was due to the venue's poor internet connection because otherwise this will make some games unplayable. They mentioned that Doom Eternal will be available and that it would be a good benchmark for the service's latency but I'm waiting to see some independent reviews to believe it. Also I don't really understand who's the target audience for this, I doubt people wh…

The PS4 is running on FreeBSD and yet, this doesn't seem to have change anything for FreeBSD gaming.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#190
post #154

Google is also launching a new Stadia Controller that [...] will work with the Stadia service by connecting directly through Wi-Fi to link it to a game session in the cloud. This will presumably help with latency and moving a game from one device to another. Sounds like a horrible design choice. My controller now needs to be wifi connected, so I can instantly change my game session from my phone to my TV? Focusing on…

"so I can instantly change my game session from my phone to my TV?" Clearly the latency advantage is the main benefit. Just as stated in the quote you used. Can you explain why that is a horrible design choice?

How does it improve latency? The device it is connected to is already internet connected and there is no meaningful latency between the controller and the device. So how does the on-board wifi help?

Adding wifi to a device for no reason is horrible, I don't suppose it needs explaining.

Post reply on HN