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Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#32

Post by gambiting »

kdwikzncba wrote: post #28
mathieuh wrote: post #2

They keep talking about cloud streaming, is anyone except executives at these companies taking cloud streaming seriously? Every time I've tried it it's been a mess of latency and fuzzy graphics. If I were at the CMA I'm not sure that's a factor in this deal that I would have given much thought at all.

Obviously the point of cloud streaming is not that it's better for the consumer, but that it gives the provider more power.

Well...........there is an argument made often that there are a LOT of people in the world(estimated to be at least 2-3 billion) who don't have access to a proper gaming device and who can't afford one. For them "just playing on a console/PC" is really not an option. But.....smartphones and crappy tablets are widespread, even in the poorest regions of the world it's not uncommon to see them - all of these devices could be used for streaming games that these users could literally never experience otherwise.

A cynic would say that it's another way to extract whatever little money these people have. An optimist would say that this technology can bring video games and their joy to people who would never be able to experience them otherwise.

You pick the one that you like more.

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#34

Post by trinovantes »

mathieuh wrote: post #2

They keep talking about cloud streaming, is anyone except executives at these companies taking cloud streaming seriously? Every time I've tried it it's been a mess of latency and fuzzy graphics. If I were at the CMA I'm not sure that's a factor in this deal that I would have given much thought at all.

Not everybody plays games that need such low latencies

e.g. Simulation games like Anno 1800 or Cities Skyline 2 require extremely good hardware if you want good frame rates late game

Besides most competitive players I know all play on lowest settings to minimize risk of lag spikes so they're unlikely to be the target audience anyways

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#35

Post by niffydroid »

mathieuh wrote: post #2

They keep talking about cloud streaming, is anyone except executives at these companies taking cloud streaming seriously? Every time I've tried it it's been a mess of latency and fuzzy graphics. If I were at the CMA I'm not sure that's a factor in this deal that I would have given much thought at all.

Every now and then I use geforce now as my pc is very outdated and my laptop can't handle some games. Last Christmas I used it to play riftbreaker which none of my devices can handle. So for people like me it's great, I can't justify spending lots of money on a new pc

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#36

Post by Topfi »

katbyte wrote: post #17
Topfi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> laws of physics Honest question, which of those is in any way applicable to this technology? Besides the fact that these services already exist and, provided you have decent infrastructure, which will only become more accessible as time goes on, do serve most people's gaming needs even in this early state. Of course, there will always be some for whom local will be the preferred option, but they were talking about…

Latency can only go down so much because as parent comment said: laws of physics dictate the minimum response time between two points given the distance. And it will be higher with each hop /media change

Ok, but we were talking about the default, the average for the majority of consumers. Did any of them care about the far more significant latency that their TVs processing imposes (or did impose, as now many TVs switch to "game mode" by themselves) on their console gaming experience?

No, the majority never even noticed. The irreducible latency some are talking about is imperceptible, not a factor for the vast majority of the populus. Ease of use, lack of install times, flexibility, and ability to spread out cost, all will outweigh that.

Re: Microsoft gets green light in UK to buy Activision

#38

Post by paperpunk »

mathieuh wrote: post #2

They keep talking about cloud streaming, is anyone except executives at these companies taking cloud streaming seriously? Every time I've tried it it's been a mess of latency and fuzzy graphics. If I were at the CMA I'm not sure that's a factor in this deal that I would have given much thought at all.

Not my experience at all.

Was able to do latency-sensitive gaming like VR gaming from a Shadow PC 200 miles away. Have happily streamed PC games to my phone whilst out and about on 4G networks. I suppose if you're comparing it to 4K ultra quality local gaming you might find it much worse, but for someone who only has a MacBook Pro I found it performed significantly better to stream the game from a PC elsewhere than to try to run Mac native versions of games – and also just let me open up high quality games very quickly from many devices without having to mess around with cables and device drivers and all that stuff.

My partner streams the Xbox games to her Surface laptop which is definitely not powerful enough to play them natively.

That said I know it's still fairly niche, but I think it has a shot of tapping into a much broader casual market than e.g. PC gaming and consoles which require people to already care enough to do a big upfront investment.

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