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Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

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Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#171

Post by stcredzero »

davemp wrote: post #56

It seems like all the major players are taking game streaming seriously. I'm still not very sure about the viability. There's the obvious DRM win. Accessibility will be higher with way lower or non-existent hardware costs. These probably look very enticing on a cooperate slide deck. Not to mention the subscription model. On a more technical side game streaming is only really desirable for games that don't run well on…

Modern games just have the client run its own world simulation and rectify with the server later to hide the network latency. This strategy won't be possible with streaming. Is there some alternate optimization that can be made for streaming?

I'm working on a system that unifies single player and multi-player development. Think of it like zeit.co's "NodeJs Now" but for games, with a local-only configuration option. The way my system relates with streaming, is that the client is scaled way down in complexity. Basically, the sync protocol is a stream of positional updates from the server. The client becomes little more than a screen entity display. Then, the developer has the option to add a bit of "own world simulation" to further hide latency. (Or, in the case of the game I've implemented, just "own entity simulation" is enough.)

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#172

Post by stcredzero »

manfredo wrote: post #74
iandanforth wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Stadia trial convinced me that streaming is a near-term viable option. Latencies were not an issue. Bandwidth was, but when I got to play on a 50Mbps+ connection any issues I had encountered disappeared. Moreover I was able to play a AAA title on my 2011 Macbook Air and that was fantastic.

What kind of games were played? Whether or not latency is an issue is hugely dependent on the title. A game like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice where the bulk of the game play revolves around precision timing is going to be killed by any significant amount of latency. Unless it does something smart like trying to compensate for the latency on the client end (e.g. make a block succeed even if it was late, if it suspects th…

Whether or not latency is an issue is hugely dependent on the title.

It's hugely dependent on particular network conditions. I wonder if SpaceX Starlink might have an option to optimize for latency?

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#173

Post by stcredzero »

mattlondon wrote: post #94
davemp wrote: post #56

It seems like all the major players are taking game streaming seriously. I'm still not very sure about the viability. There's the obvious DRM win. Accessibility will be higher with way lower or non-existent hardware costs. These probably look very enticing on a cooperate slide deck. Not to mention the subscription model. On a more technical side game streaming is only really desirable for games that don't run well on…

20-30ms seems high? At least in the UK a typical home broadband latency is 6 to 9ms in my experience.

Back in the early 2000's in Ohio, under 80ms round trip latency was once advertised as 'leet gamer stuff.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#174

Post by voldacar »

Xixi wrote: post #90
davemp wrote: post #56

It seems like all the major players are taking game streaming seriously. I'm still not very sure about the viability. There's the obvious DRM win. Accessibility will be higher with way lower or non-existent hardware costs. These probably look very enticing on a cooperate slide deck. Not to mention the subscription model. On a more technical side game streaming is only really desirable for games that don't run well on…

I have no idea how reliable it is, but quoting wikipedia [1]: "Testing has found that overall "input lag" (from controller input to display response) times of approximately 200 ms are distracting to the user. It also appears that (excluding the monitor/television display lag) 133 ms is an average response time and the most sensitive games (fighting games, first person shooters and rhythm games) achieve response times…

In arena shooters like quake and similar games, input lag of 10ms (1-2 frames) is noticeable. 200ms would be an absolute joke.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#175

Post by iandanforth »

rincebrain wrote: post #79
manfredo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of games were played? Whether or not latency is an issue is hugely dependent on the title. A game like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice where the bulk of the game play revolves around precision timing is going to be killed by any significant amount of latency. Unless it does something smart like trying to compensate for the latency on the client end (e.g. make a block succeed even if it was late, if it suspects th…

I believe they're talking about the Assassin's Creed: Odyssey trial.

Yep!

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#176

Post by tetha »

wuliwong wrote: post #170
tetha wrote: post #165

I am sad with this threads discussion. Or I'm old. This is a logical step in lock-in disguised as user experience. Back in the day, if you could maintain the data, my 15 physical 3.5 inch rather unfloppy floppies were monkey island. I lost my personal copy, but if I moved the data, I could have my own copy of monkey island right here. I personally failed on my own maintenance there. Then we had - skipping some steps…

I can understand that you dislike the idea of being beholden to a 3rd party in order to run your game but you lost me with >At this point, what difference is there to an interactive movie? What is an interactive movie and how does having a game stream from a remote server change a video game into one of these things?

This has been a complaint especially in the adventure game community. If I go to the cinema to watch the endgame or a john wick movie, I pay 10 bucks for 2 hours of movies. A lot of AAA games are a bunch of boring filler with some interactivity, but you end up with a much worse money per minute ratio. If you discount cutscenes, I've spent 60 bucks on less than two hour of gameplay on some games.

Now, I could replay those games after some time. That improves my overall cost-benefit ratio from 60 bucks -> 2 hours of gameplay to 60 bucks -> 4 hours of gameplay. Or, if the game is good, even more. I have a bunch of adventure games I paid 10 bucks for, and I have replayed them a lot and I will replay them a lot.

However, if you have a AAA studio, they will consider a game a failure shortly after release. You get one play-through for 60$ and that's all you get, because then they shutdown the servers for their next thing. And of course they will "charge less" and "run updates" and "keep expansions going" and such so it's less obvious. I'm jaded at this point.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#177

Post by DangitBobby »

Finally, someone listens! I've been saying for years that not enough services are dependent on unreliable internet infrastructure! I can't wait to add single player games to the list of things I am unable to do when my internet provider has yet another massive multi-day outage.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#178

Post by kbenson »

tetha wrote: post #176
wuliwong wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand that you dislike the idea of being beholden to a 3rd party in order to run your game but you lost me with >At this point, what difference is there to an interactive movie? What is an interactive movie and how does having a game stream from a remote server change a video game into one of these things?

This has been a complaint especially in the adventure game community. If I go to the cinema to watch the endgame or a john wick movie, I pay 10 bucks for 2 hours of movies. A lot of AAA games are a bunch of boring filler with some interactivity, but you end up with a much worse money per minute ratio. If you discount cutscenes, I've spent 60 bucks on less than two hour of gameplay on some games. Now, I could replay t…

> Now, I could replay those games after some time. That improves my overall cost-benefit ratio from 60 bucks -> 2 hours of gameplay to 60 bucks -> 4 hours of gameplay.

Or someone has modded it, and you can play it again with different content, or altered content, or altered gameplay, or some combination thereof. And if it's owned and local, there's nothing they can do to really stop someone from doing that definitively. The first mods for games weren't because developers decided they wanted people to be able to mod the games, they were from fans diving in, reverse engineering and making changes. Developers embracing modding came later.

With a cloud based game or digitally verified synced content, some level of consumer control is definitely lost, and that's a shame.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#179

Post by ericdykstra »

tetha wrote: post #165

I am sad with this threads discussion. Or I'm old. This is a logical step in lock-in disguised as user experience. Back in the day, if you could maintain the data, my 15 physical 3.5 inch rather unfloppy floppies were monkey island. I lost my personal copy, but if I moved the data, I could have my own copy of monkey island right here. I personally failed on my own maintenance there. Then we had - skipping some steps…

We already see this problem with other streaming media services; just because something is available today doesn’t mean it will be available tomorrow.

I don’t want to give that much control over to someone else. I don’t need all-you-can-eat content. Just let me pay for the music/movie/book/game that I want and enjoy it for what it is, and know I always can just use my copy without needing to be plugged into the internet.

I guess this view probably makes me look like an old man yelling at a cloud, but I’ve managed to find a way to survive without signing up for Netflix, and I hope I can still play games in the future without needing to sign up for a streaming service.

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