That's a fantastic way for anyone in charge of ISP's to forcibly get thrown out of the company by those people they answer to. ISP's will NEVER sacrifice money for quality.
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Streaming will become the most economical way to play the latest games (and succeed because of it)
- Thread starter HanzSnubSnub
- Start date
That's a fantastic way for anyone in charge of ISP's to forcibly get thrown out of the company by those people they answer to. ISP's will NEVER sacrifice money for quality.
Meh, people said that for every streaming service. I like buying my games and having copies, I even still buy music files(only because I DJ though). But see what happens when you offer virtually all relevant music/movies for next to nothing. There's no reason to think video games will be magically exempt from that trend. Just look at how everyone has fully embraced dematerialized games despite huge resitance on GAF and other communities. I can still remember the meltdown with Half Life 2 and Steam, now look where we're at.
Era is probably not a good judge on the matter to be honest, 95%+ gamers are nowhere as invested or hardcore as people here. They will get what they want: often only a couple of games, sometimes even just one, for a small or possibly inexistant investment, + no 70$ price tag attached for games. I don't think they will think long. It's just a matter of having a good system correctly marketed now. Internet is plenty fast in most first world cities, and will keep getting better. 5G is around the corner too. I don't think it's gonna take long, and I don't think traditional consoles/PC will be left with a majority market share in 7-8 year, probably even less.
Yeah I'm a bit skeptical about the actual rendering power that will be devoted to the game. But I guess time will tell.
As for latency issues, after trying GeForce Now, I think latency is a total non issue for anyone but competitive kb/m players. The latency with a 120fps stream doesn't feel too far off regular 60fps with triple buffered vsync. It's certainly enough for me to notice in something like Counter-Strike, but with a game pad the lag is not apparent whatsoever. And we can expect Stadia to be better than that in all likelihood.
F2P games currently dominate and publishers are starting to push or inscription bard GaaS. We're going to see a major shift away from purchasing games outright. Streaming fits into this model perfectly.
The shift will only happen if consumers accept it. I expect they will for MP but not SP.
The only way this would be a good thing is if this is what finally turns red state America against ISPs and makes them as popular as tobacco companies, but that isn't happening in the US. We'll end up paying more money for less service, just like american ISPs want it.
investments in new internet infrastructure have been cut in half during Trump's time thanks to Ajit Pai.
The only way this would be a good thing is if this is what finally turns red state America against ISPs and makes them as popular as tobacco companies, but that isn't happening in the US. We'll end up paying more money for less service, just like american ISPs want it.
investments in new internet infrastructure have been cut in half during Trump's time thanks to Ajit Pai.
I mean can only speak for myself but my two current subs are GP Ultimate and GameFly. Granted I got GP Ultimate until April 2022 for like 100 bucks (Gold and GP deals and the 1dollar Ultimate upgrade) but for conversation wise let's just say I'm paying the full price now for ultimate at 15 per month. GameFly is 15 a month. So by the math this would mean 30 a month or 360 a year or basically 6 full priced games a year.
This year alone I've played and beat dozens and dozens of games on GP and looking at the rest of this year:
2019 Games
- COD MW (Gamefly)
- Outer Worlds (GP)
- Gears 5 (GP)
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (GameFly)
- Ghost Recon (Gamefly)
- Control (GameFly)
Even if you didn't count all the games on gold, GP console or GP PC, the rest of the calendar year alone would justify the cost.
Next year so far:
2020 Games
- Ori Will of the Wisp (GP)
- Minecraft Dungeons (GP)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (Gamefly)
- Halo Infinite (GP)
- Doom Eternal (GameFly)
- Watch Dogs Legion (Game Fly)
So not counting anything else coming to GP on Xbox or PC or games with gold or other unannounced games for 2020 I'm already about to break even.
And again this isn't counting all the other great games I'm getting with GP like Outer Wilds, Void Basterds, My Time at Portia, Undertale, Slay the Spire, hollow knight, metro exodus etc etc
This year alone I've played and beat dozens and dozens of games on GP and looking at the rest of this year:
2019 Games
- COD MW (Gamefly)
- Outer Worlds (GP)
- Gears 5 (GP)
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (GameFly)
- Ghost Recon (Gamefly)
- Control (GameFly)
Even if you didn't count all the games on gold, GP console or GP PC, the rest of the calendar year alone would justify the cost.
Next year so far:
2020 Games
- Ori Will of the Wisp (GP)
- Minecraft Dungeons (GP)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (Gamefly)
- Halo Infinite (GP)
- Doom Eternal (GameFly)
- Watch Dogs Legion (Game Fly)
So not counting anything else coming to GP on Xbox or PC or games with gold or other unannounced games for 2020 I'm already about to break even.
And again this isn't counting all the other great games I'm getting with GP like Outer Wilds, Void Basterds, My Time at Portia, Undertale, Slay the Spire, hollow knight, metro exodus etc etc
Tell that to the ppl that sell the games after they beat them. Especially when streaming games are the same price as physical ones. Digital games in my country are actually more expensive than physical games so its crazy to think i would ever go digital only, much less streaming only.
Physical stores while have a recomended price they compete with many other stores doing more promos and lowering the price of release games. Once u take out that option, ur stuck in a company monopoly.
Physical stores while have a recomended price they compete with many other stores doing more promos and lowering the price of release games. Once u take out that option, ur stuck in a company monopoly.
Sorry i'm not referencing the Google offer directly. I'm assuming someone will be able to push on the market a true subscription based system at some point. If it runs on any laptop this would be even more huge. I think such a solution will be important for widespread success, but even without, streaming can already be very attractive for price conscious, non hardcore gamer. It's always about bangs for your bucks in the end IMHO.
It's a matter of the isp but not only that technology is not only there, game streaming is totally different than music and movies.
The issue with that would be pricing tho if you do a true to life Netflix style the pricing will be high no way a service like that can make it on 10 or 20 a month
What is their promise beyond difference in resolution and audio between the free version and the pro? Have they mentioned if games will run at the maximum settings graphically for every game?
100% my biggest concern, even over data caps. Just the fact that PS5 is backwards compatible guarantees an eventual purchase from me. And it won't be day one, either. Google will kill Stadia in less than a console generation, like they do essentially everything else that isn't immediately successful
Death is also my future, but I don't welcome it yet either.
See you didn't factor in my data cap costs.
I also resell lots of games, share with friends, bring consoles/computer to play games locally in areas with spotty internet etc. Lots of issues.
For the average parent who might not want to spend $500 on a console among games and extras, it will be. However, for people who are not seeking to be economical and are more enthusiast about their gaming then this is pretty much a nonstarter outside of playing when you're traveling or something.
"Streaming movies? That's a totally different beast than streaming just sound."
Technology evolves very fast. All of this arguing is moot anyway because the technology provably exists. The only matter now is optimization for all conditions.
it's not that simple. You have to ask yourself what incentives streaming platform owners have to push the performance. And just because the hardware sits in a data center doesn't make it free. Unlike most web servers that can be made useful globally this gaming hardware will sit almost unused for large chunks of the day.
In addition there isn't that much evidence supporting the idea that high-end graphics are driving consumer gaming purchases. If streaming "wins" it won't be because of better graphics.
Anyway it's not like console makers are without options. They could go back to aggressively subsidizing hardware but with more reliable funding from subscription services. One thing I'm hoping for is a push toward low-latency tv-tech which could make local games feel snappier and better than what's possible with streaming.
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Greed will kill game streaming services just as it's already beginning to hurt movie/tv streaming services. Everyone and their uncles want to have their own streaming service (just like cable channels).
Eventually there is going to be like 10-20 game streaming services. Maybe not at first but eventually you will have something like:
Microsoft Gamepass
Sony PlayStation NOW
EA
Activision
Ubisoft
ETC
Some smaller indie ones, etc.
I'll stick to physical when possible and digital downloads myself.
Eventually there is going to be like 10-20 game streaming services. Maybe not at first but eventually you will have something like:
Microsoft Gamepass
Sony PlayStation NOW
EA
Activision
Ubisoft
ETC
Some smaller indie ones, etc.
I'll stick to physical when possible and digital downloads myself.
Stadia will be an interesting experiment, but I just don´t see it succeeding amidst such strong brands as PlayStation ( here in Finland Sony has a very strong foothold on gamers - casuals and hardcore alike ). Seeing that PS5 will be backwards compatible, it is a must-buy for me, and I am very skeptic about game-streaming future in general. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see how well Stadia does, even though I will not be an adopter.
My biggest problem with game streaming is that I dont have control over the game files. I play at 21:9 (3440x1440). Sometimes I have to do some tinkering to get games to look the way I want them. If I cant do that with stadia its unusable for me. Same goes for mods and community fixes of (old) games. I dont want to live in a world where I can not install the amazing HD mod for RE4 on PC or play the crazy nuts MP of Just Cause 2. But to be more on topic, I wonder if google will do sales and such for the games.
Even if it's more economical right now (and I am suspicious of that in the long term as I feel a lot of these companies are loss-leading on these services until they can kill local hardware) centralising things online is just a really stupid idea in general. You're asking for trouble with network congestion, angry customers during downtime, and queues to use the service at peak periods. And those are just the immediate issues that come to mind.
Compute should be on the edge of the network, especially the more latency sensitive stuff. If we found ourselves in a situation where we were centralising all our compute in the network, the people doing that would want to abstract it to the edge just to take the cost burden off of themselves, especially if they are dependent on a fickle consumer base that would subscribe and unsubscribe at whim. That kind of consumer behaviour is probably just about viable for content delivery services like Netflix, Game Pass, Spotify and so on, where subscribers merely download content to their device, which then does all the legwork of actually playing it. Is it also viable when the actual difficult computing legwork is done remotely too?
Compute should be on the edge of the network, especially the more latency sensitive stuff. If we found ourselves in a situation where we were centralising all our compute in the network, the people doing that would want to abstract it to the edge just to take the cost burden off of themselves, especially if they are dependent on a fickle consumer base that would subscribe and unsubscribe at whim. That kind of consumer behaviour is probably just about viable for content delivery services like Netflix, Game Pass, Spotify and so on, where subscribers merely download content to their device, which then does all the legwork of actually playing it. Is it also viable when the actual difficult computing legwork is done remotely too?
After watching the Phil Spencer interview with Jeff Gerstmann this E3 regarding streaming, I'm pretty confident streaming won't be replacing hardware for a very long time to come.
PS Now and Google Stadia are incredibly different experiences. I was a skeptic due to my experience with PS Now until I got into the stadia beta. Now I am a true believer. It is a night and day difference.
It's hard to answer because I'm the kind of person who wants to get the best hardware possible. I bought a Pro and an X and a 4K TV to play games. Streaming would be a cool novelty for sure but not something I would use over a console.
Someone on the other side who doesn't even buy games or own a console isn't likely to be swayed either
No, it won't.
New $60 AAA releases won't be in $10 subs. So the same game costs still exist unless you want to wait 12-24 months to play games, whenever they make enough money to justify taking less on a service
And the ISP cost factors into it. Low income families want to buy consoles as gifts, games and trade them in too. So $30-$40 per month for decent speeds minimum, times 60 months is $1,800. But you'll have internet anyway right?
Well if you're internet is out or a game is delisted then you can't even access your $60 streaming purchase, let alone receive them as gifts.
I really think people are over hyping streaming as the future of games.
New $60 AAA releases won't be in $10 subs. So the same game costs still exist unless you want to wait 12-24 months to play games, whenever they make enough money to justify taking less on a service
And the ISP cost factors into it. Low income families want to buy consoles as gifts, games and trade them in too. So $30-$40 per month for decent speeds minimum, times 60 months is $1,800. But you'll have internet anyway right?
Well if you're internet is out or a game is delisted then you can't even access your $60 streaming purchase, let alone receive them as gifts.
I really think people are over hyping streaming as the future of games.
1000x this. This cannot be stated enough. And for anyone who thinks Google is going to bat for them to work towards changing laws and regulation to fix it... that's some dangerous optimism.
Did I miss something? I thought you had to buy latest games at full price irrespective of whether streaming or not.
EDIT: Reading the first page, many people pointed it out but OP seems to have ignored them all. I think he/she genuinely didn't know that you have to buy latest games to play even at 1080p.
EDIT: Reading the first page, many people pointed it out but OP seems to have ignored them all. I think he/she genuinely didn't know that you have to buy latest games to play even at 1080p.
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I always thought it would make a lot of sense for companies to give away more stuff for less money which is totally something that happens all the time.
I imagine I'll be a retro-only gamer if streaming is the future. It would be one thing if the tech worked like magic, but networking+software are things I have too much familiarity with to believe Google's claims. Internet infrastructure just isn't going to be there, edge nodes is an obvious last mile problem waiting to happen, and paying to "buy" games locked to a streaming service is something I don't ideologically agree with.
That said, I'm not worried. Google will discontinue stadia in a few years and MS/sony will happily use that market failure to keep their existing business model.
That said, I'm not worried. Google will discontinue stadia in a few years and MS/sony will happily use that market failure to keep their existing business model.
The sting for me is the games will be as expensive as retail/console games? Like may as well buy it on your gaming console.
You are mistaken. You still need to buy the games at full price. Same price as digital or physical games. The only cash u save is in the console purchase but u get the worst gaming experience for that. And the money you can save by selling/ buying / borrowing used physical games make a much bigger saving than the initial 500$ of a new console.
It's true that it still has to happen, It's also true that greed from multiple companies could make it hard to happen. I don't hope for streaming tbh, but it seems like it's coming for sure, and if it manages to deliver better value for a good enough experience on most popular games, I still believe it will eventually become the most popular option. There's good arguments in this topic! It seems true to me that marketing and pricing will be the hardest part.
The talk about streaming always makes me feel asleep. It has been touted "teh future" for so long, but it still hasnt happened..
Talk about value...
Your calculation is based on the assumption that google will keep the price at 10$/mo for premium for the next 5-10 years. This isnt happening. It'll rise after 3 years im willing to bet. Even if you did purchase it at 10 today and stacked some years worth of subs that still is a huge upfront cost(600$ for 5 years) making purchasing a console much cheaper in comparison.
Only time will tell how it will all unfold.
Only time will tell how it will all unfold.
Yea, I can't fuck with Stadia. It's one thing to not own the physical games. It's another to not even own the hardware (in the traditional sense). I'm not interested in making that jump, even if my data caps allowed for it. For me, Stadia is dead in the womb. That said, I'm sure there's a market of some sort for it; I'm just not sure what kinds of games that the audience buying into Stadia are looking for. Surely people looking for AAA graphics and experiences are core gamers and would be more likely to continue to purchase consoles and PCs, no? And it's not like the cost of gaming is really rising. Consoles are likely to be in the usual price range for newGen hardware, PC gaming has rarely been cheaper with memory prices collapsing, AMD CPUs on fire and GPUs across all price points able to deliver 1080p/60. If console gaming was rising towards $1000 for new consoles, I'd feel differently but we're not there.
It's interesting and I'll be looking forward to looking at the analytics and demographics that it ends up resonating most with. You have to have some significant privilege to live in the US and have access speeds and data caps flexible enough to seriously entertain this, and I'd have to think every day would be an anxious one as if the ISP is having issues, you can't play. The load here for an online game is just vastly different than the load required for a normal game on your end and I assume far more sensitive. On the worst days, you can always play something offline with a console or PC. This is like...nope.
It's interesting and I'll be looking forward to looking at the analytics and demographics that it ends up resonating most with. You have to have some significant privilege to live in the US and have access speeds and data caps flexible enough to seriously entertain this, and I'd have to think every day would be an anxious one as if the ISP is having issues, you can't play. The load here for an online game is just vastly different than the load required for a normal game on your end and I assume far more sensitive. On the worst days, you can always play something offline with a console or PC. This is like...nope.
I am all with you op. I will use stadia for multiplat/pc-blockbuster games like cyberpunk and play exclusives on my switch or ps4.
I do not play online games (so lag is not a huge problem) and I am not interested in owning my games at all. Roughly i play around 7-10 games per year, I do not have the time to play more. A service that lets me play the newest stuff in high quality without getting a 400€ graphic card every few years is perfect for me. I need my internet subscription anyway, so I do not see that as an additional monthly cost like some people do in this thread. Probably I will get stadia as soon as it is out in Germany and will get the ps5 then if it has enough exclusives that at warrant the buy some years after release.
I do not play online games (so lag is not a huge problem) and I am not interested in owning my games at all. Roughly i play around 7-10 games per year, I do not have the time to play more. A service that lets me play the newest stuff in high quality without getting a 400€ graphic card every few years is perfect for me. I need my internet subscription anyway, so I do not see that as an additional monthly cost like some people do in this thread. Probably I will get stadia as soon as it is out in Germany and will get the ps5 then if it has enough exclusives that at warrant the buy some years after release.
