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Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

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Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#131

Post by fixermark »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #49
danso wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, how can you compare this to Steam? Google aims to obviate the need for gamers to own top-of-the-line hardware. Steam does not offer that feature.

Current gamers already have gaming PCs, so there isn't much of a benefit. Even for people that don't have gaming computers or consoles, you can put a decent one together that costs less than one of Google's phones

True, but the only PC you're going to build out that competes with the price of a Chromecast Ultra is a Raspberry Pi retro box.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#132

Post by m_ke »

anth_anm wrote: post #96
m_ke wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but they control all of the platforms to make this work. With Android, Chrome, Chromecast, Youtube and GCP they have all of the pieces in place.

I wish anti-trust was a thing.

Elizabeth Warren is coming to shake things up ;)

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#133

Post by fixermark »

tareqak wrote: post #106

Given the number products and services that Google has shuttered over the years and their focus on learning all there is about their users, I am going to sit this one out. There is definitely some cool work here though: being able to have access to a library of games without lugging around a console or computer is an interesting idea with both pros and cons. The pro that I can think of is not having to be responsible…

Probably worth noting: this project appears aligned with Google's Cloud and mobile initiatives. It's unproven, but it's originating from spaces where Google's products have stuck around.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#134

Post by snaky »

fixermark wrote: post #129
snaky wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are more and more wary about giving this company any more personal data To have the data of every choice and move in every second of every game would be quite useful to calculate the model of the particular user with the level of accuracy barely existed before.

It'd be useful for game developers also. Bungie had to build an infrastructure to push analytics from Halo into their system so they could get "heatmaps" of where players were in a multiplayer map. This fed back into their design process and was used to tweak maps after release. Building something like that might be easier if all the state is living in a cloud server "right next to" the analytics pipeline, with no ne…

That's for sure, but Google wouldn't be Google if they don't invent the way to derivate from that data something like "neural heatmaps" of the particular user to use it for advertising part of business.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#135

Post by ssully »

jsgo wrote: post #114
ssully wrote: 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…

Game Pass works because you're essentially temporarily unlocking a library of games to be downloaded to your device. It really isn't an indicator they're moving in the same direction as Stadia. It is kind of another beast altogether for Google, Shadow, Microsoft (xCloud), etc. to dedicate actual hardware for your usage. Shadow and others like it are essentially remote VM w/ GPU that you rent by the hour. Stadia, xClo…

It's not just game pass though. Microsoft has flat out said they are moving towards streaming. They are also doing things like making Xbox live a service on the Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android. Game Pass the way it is today is just an indicator into how things will be.

Microsoft has made clear that they want Xbox to be a platform independent of the physical box they sell to people. They are 100% going in the direction of Stadia. The big question is how they are going to do it in regards to their next console.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#136

Post by kllrnohj »

tcd wrote: post #61
mav3rick wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Serious" gamers can still buy consoles. This is not a zero sum market.

Everyone copied Apple when they removed the headphone jack, whose to say consoles in the traditional sense will still be around in 20 years? Microsoft/Sony are NOT going to sit back and let Google win here. Expect replies from them (especially with Microsoft's Azure). The streaming services of gaming is coming.

> The streaming services of gaming is coming.

It's already failed multiple times. OnLive tried & failed. Nvidia's has been in beta for years. Sony has one.

Everyone in this area has tried this. Nobody has seen what could be described as "success", and the cost models so far have been ludicrous. Turns out renting Xeons and Radeon MI Instincts in a professionally staffed, maintained datacenter is way, way more expensive than a handful of consumer chips in a box in the living room with nobody on-call to monitor it.

The GPU here looks to be basically a slightly cut-down AMD MI25. That'd make a single GPU in this stradia cloud gaming service costs more than 10 xbox one x's. How do you make that price-competitive here?

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#137

Post by jsgo »

gsich wrote: post #95
bryanlarsen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam link games don't have latency compensation since the games are unmodified. I assume that stadia games will have latency compensation, so should be much more playable.

How would you compensate for that?

can't speak for Steam Link because I have one, but it was more headache than it was worth to get running.

That said, I had my Bootcamped MBP with a XB1 controller connected over Bluetooth and any input lag was negligible with the Assassin's Creed Odyssey Project Stream demo.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#138

Post by chaostheory »

ilamont wrote: post #48

Some may remember an earlier streaming game service, OnLive, that crashed and burned spectacularly: https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/28/3274739/onlive-report plus HN discussions here: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=onlive&sort=byPopularity&prefi... I saw the OnLive demo. It was very slick, and the concept seemed more than viable, it was inevitable.

Gaikai was one of OnLive's competitors. It had better management and probably better tech as well. Sony bought it out and it still lives as Playstation Now. I believe Dave Perry is one of the founders.

EDIT: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaikai-founder-blames-onlives-pc-foc...

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#139

Post by eikenberry »

jpambrun wrote: post #34
saberience wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am a "gamer", I have a 2080Ti and I hope it's the last 1500$ gaming equipment I ever have to buy. It sits idle 95%+ of the time and it is tied to only one of the all the screens in my house. I want this to work.

Why is it tied to only 1 screen? You can use Steam or Nvidia Shield to stream to just about any screen or tablet in the house and it works great. My gaming system is headless and I play all my games streaming to one system or another.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#140

Post by eropple »

vvanders wrote: post #47
saberience wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

+1, ex networking+tools gamedev here and have almost the exact same thoughts. They haven't fundamentally solved the latency issue, 50-100ms of ping is brutal and the people who could be a target for this generally won't have a fiber internet connection. Network gameplay works via misdirection, predictable simulations and knowing how to converge a divergent state(including rewinding in time to re-play hittraces and th…

I'm not super sure, anymore, about latency being as big a deal. Particularly with regards to monitors. Display lag on a large TV can be upwards of 50ms by itself; display lag on a monitor can be as low as 5ms. If you're viewing this as a competitor to low-end, relatively lightweight console play, the total lag of display plus network is actually maybe not that bad. Also, living in Boston I was seeing 16ms pings on Google's service when I tried it out, which might be an adoption factor. 16ms plus a monitor's display lag is going to be competitive with most HDTVs.

That level of lag definitely makes some games implausible. (Part of why I bought a big-ass OLED is that newer TVs, but particularly OLEDs, seem to have generally consistent display lag; being able to play Tekken 7 on a 55" screen with only 21ms of lag is nice, but to do it on my old LCD is like playing underwater.) But I think it's going to be more practical for more games than the current conventional wisdom suggests.

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