Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 577 posts

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#321

Post by deminature »

geddy wrote: post #317

Does anyone even consider playing on the go anymore? I will be 200 years old by the time you can stream 60fps to a device sitting on a bus on my way to work. Streaming may have a place in the future, but if it's the only option, then consider me a full-time retro gamer. I already despise the fact that the masses voted to kill ownership of games, and now it's going straight to killing "rental licenses" as well, puttin…

You can already stream to a mobile device over 4G now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykFQW6Jtc0A

The quality of this is only likely to improve with 5G coming in the next year or so.

This technology consolidating in the hands of only two companies implies there aren't going to be any competitors. Nvidia is already establishing a foothold in this space, and I imagine AMD will also do so eventually. If the technology is actually interesting to consumers, there will be a competitive ecosystem that springs up to serve them. The future isn't as dystopian as you're implying.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#322

Post by _bxg1 »

jhall1468 wrote: post #294
_bxg1 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't deny that ISP's make it far harder than it needs to be. They make it impossible for small upstarts. But Google, of all companies, had plenty of resources to make it happen if they really wanted to.

Blowing millions of dollars on an investment that will take decades to pay off isn't good business. Google decided, rightfully, that the answer was webpass. It's a better revenue generator, and has considerably lower barrier to entry.

The point is they overcommit and then back out instead of doing more careful due-diligence. Google Glass is an example of the right way to explore a new product; most of their ventures aren't so conservative.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#323

Post by twiceaday »

frankchn wrote: post #252
twiceaday wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The pace has slowed down somewhat. A 2080 (discounting the DLSS and RTX stuff) is about as fast as a 1080Ti, a 2070 is about as fast as a plain 1080, etc...

That doesn't really change my argument. If the pace slowed down then a x70 will last longer too.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#324

Post by golfer »

johnyzee wrote: post #190
golfer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

"no meaningful latency" --> citation needed. In gaming, every ms counts.

"for no reason": I can think of a variety of ways it will be beneficial to the overall utility and simplicity of setup. Seems like an odd thing to be so negative about.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#326

Post by kofejnik »

justfor1comment wrote: post #280
markdog12 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lag was still a rare thing during my experience Anything more specific than that, i.e. lag would occur every 10 mins on avg?

Yes that seems about right. I would say lag occurs once every 5 mins and lasts for roughly a second. Not longer than that. But since gaming is such a visual medium that 1 second seems longer than it actually is. One thing I forgot to mention is I was on wifi and the performance may have been better had I plugged in an ethernet cable. Although I would add that wifi usage is going to be what the typical user opts for.

I used to get these, every 5 minutes, right on the clock. Turns out, OS X location services rescan wifi every 5 minutes, God knows why. Turn it off, lag gone.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#327

Post by filoleg »

gipp wrote: post #73
kemonocode wrote: post #52

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.

It's less about them killing products and more about them following the same frustrating sequence of steps (for products that people actually liked):

1. Release a product, make it decently good.

2. Kill it in a few years after it has gotten widely adopted.

3. Release an alternative product that does the same thing, but, a lot of times, worse than the original and/or with missing functionality from the old one that people actually care about.

4. Bonus step: make it really confusing (looking at you, Hangouts => Allo/Duo).

5. Repeat the cycle.

Notable examples of it that come to mind:

* Messaging: GChat => Hangouts => Allo/Duo => I got tired of keeping up with that they are pushing now

* Music streaming: Google Music => Google Play Music [just a rename, I think] => YouTube Remix => YouTube Music

* First party Android experience: Google Play Edition => [I feel like I am missing something in-between here] => Android One + Android Go

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#328

Post by rocky1138 »

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.

Steam has built-in in-home streaming so you can play games on your beefy PC from anywhere in the house.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#329

Post by pergadad »

holoduke wrote: post #219

The reason why these kind of initiatives fail is because they do not solve a real problem or issue. The average Joe doesn't need another subscription just to play some games. Having a console where you buy games is more than enough. I also silently hope that Google will fail hard with this one. Since they are the worst publisher on earth with absolutely no compassion towards its developers relationships.

$400 for a current console and $60 or so for a recent game. Assuming you buy the next gen after 3 years or so there's quite a budget invested in the gamer's part - a streaming service at maybe $20/month that gives you access to recent titles doesn't look that bad in comparison.

Re: Google unveils Stadia cloud gaming service

#330

Post by geddy »

deminature wrote: post #321
geddy wrote: post #317

Does anyone even consider playing on the go anymore? I will be 200 years old by the time you can stream 60fps to a device sitting on a bus on my way to work. Streaming may have a place in the future, but if it's the only option, then consider me a full-time retro gamer. I already despise the fact that the masses voted to kill ownership of games, and now it's going straight to killing "rental licenses" as well, puttin…

You can already stream to a mobile device over 4G now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykFQW6Jtc0A The quality of this is only likely to improve with 5G coming in the next year or so. This technology consolidating in the hands of only two companies implies there aren't going to be any competitors. Nvidia is already establishing a foothold in this space, and I imagine AMD will also do so eventually. If the technology…

It's dystopian in the sense that nothing is actually owned anymore. I grew up collecting games and still collect them now, and for a ton of people (the average gamer is in their mid-30s, and that's a massive demographic) still likes to collect their games. They like a shelf of titles. Heck, even those who buy digital have little digital collections, and more power to 'em.

But paying a monthly fee and having my gaming time leased out to me by MegaCorp is not anything I'm interested in. I want to pick what I enjoy, buy it, and play it. I'm not crazy for thinking that way, collecting is part of the fun of gaming for me and many others.

Speaking of the 4G/5G, I cannot fathom a world where you can be on a subway underground and somehow have a perfect streaming connection. And subways are only in major cities - what about the rest of the entire country? The current infrastructure, heck, the infrastructure of 10 years from now isn't built to handle this kind of bandwidth for constant streaming. It's not even efficient - always-online services have been vilified by the gaming community, and now somehow we're celebrating being stuck on 1 TV, playing at home.

Sigh. I feel like this whole industry has left me behind, and nothing makes sense anymore.

Post reply on HN