Earlier this week, we discussed news that games industry veteran Dave Perry had posted a demo of his upcoming cloud gaming service Gaikai. Now that people have had time to speak with Perry and evaluate the demo, reaction has been surprisingly positive. Quoting Eurogamer: "What struck me about the presentation was that there was absolutely nothing unbelievable in it whatsoever. There were no claims of streaming 720p gameplay at 60 frames per second — games were running in differently sized windows according to how difficult they were to compress, and video itself runs at the internet standard 30FPS. There was no talk of world-beating compression systems that annihilate the work of the best minds in video encoding today, the demo was using the exact same h264 codec that we use ... And finally, there was nothing here to suggest that we were looking at a technological breakthrough that would make our PS3s and Xbox 360s obsolete... just that this was a brand new way to play games in an ultra-accessible manner." By contrast, OnLive was received with much more criticism, in part due to their dramatic promises. While playing online games with Gaikai will naturally add some amount of latency, the article points out that single-player games need not lag more than you'd expect from a console controller. Meanwhile, unlike OnLive, Gaikai is not trying to compete directly with the major console manufacturers, instead trying to work with them in order to deliver their first-party games to new audiences.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday July 05, @05:00PM (#28588961)
Stop giving it press.
Gaming is already ultra-accessible, this is the solution to a problem that, for consumers, doesn't exist. The only people this will benefit is the game companies.
It depends though. For some things, yes, there is no point in me playing my 360 games on my laptop rather than on my console if I'm just in a different room. However, if I can use a netbook (rather than a $2000 15 pound gaming notebook) paired with in-flight wi-fi and play my 360 games on the airplane, it might be worth it.
Exactly. A service like this opens up gaming to a whole class of players who were currently cut off by the insane cost of "gaming" hardware.
As long as the service doesn't expand into the realm of hi-def gameplay (which is unlikely considering the horrible state of our Internet bandwidth) you'll minimize the exposure of Nvidia, ATI, and console manufacturers.
This service won't supplant buying high end consoles or PC hardware -- this will still be necessary if you want the best gaming experience. But it will allow those who cannot afford to upgrade their hardware to play the games they currently can't. It's a win-win for everyone.
This service will likely cost more for a few months of subscription fees than a midrange video card does, and a netbook to play one of these streamed video games on costs about the same as a budget/midrange gaming PC. PC "gaming hardware" is hardly "insanely" expensive and for PC games this isn't terribly useful unless you have a portable machine and a quick internet connection, things that often don't go together.
It's a win for everyone: larger market = more sales (or rentals in this case) = more money for developers = more developers and more games = win for consumers.
Tell me now who loses and why?
However, if I can use a netbook (rather than a $2000 15 pound gaming notebook) paired with in-flight wi-fi and play my 360 games on the airplane, it might be worth it.
For the cost of playing a 360 game streamed over satellite wi-fi, you could buy the best laptop on the planet.
And that's assuming that several people playing games on the same aircraft could even get enough bandwidth in the first place. Isn't the total bandwidth to one aircraft around 512kps?
And that's assuming that several people playing games on the same aircraft could even get enough bandwidth in the first place. Isn't the total bandwidth to one aircraft around 512kps?
Nevermind that - if you're going to use this on an airplane the lag (aka latency) is absolutely going to KILL you unless you're playing some turn-based game, and even there input lag will probably make you want to stop playing it.
np: Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Joy Maker Machinery (Twice Born Men)
Having read the first 2 pages of TFA, I still don't see how fast of a connection you need for these to become playable. I mean, where I live, the best connection you can get is a ~1 Megabit DSL connection.
Um... yes? "How many Nintendo games are going to appear on OnLive? The answer is none," Perry adds. "And some of the best games in the world are from Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft... I'm already talking to Nintendo. I'm talking to all the major publishers.
So in the end this service is going to end up as nothing more than PC games? Its not a good sign when a company who makes most of the classic games that people remember rejects your ideas, and I'm not sure Sony or MS wants to jump on the bandwagon (though it wouldn't surprise me if MS bought the company
This isn't OnLive - that's the vaporware competitor to this. He's stated that Nintendo has already turned down OnLive but is talking to him about possibly bringing it's games to Gaikai.
Its not a good sign when a company who makes most of the classic games that people remember rejects your ideas, and I'm not sure Sony or MS wants to jump on the bandwagon (though it wouldn't surprise me if MS bought the company if they managed to turn out a decent product).
The console manufacturers have everything to lose and nothing to gain by helping out. If this service succedes no one will be buying specalized gaming systems anymore and this company will be buying comodity hardware to run these games. At best they could each have their own roku type box that connects to the service. Even with the pc games eventually this company will end up wanting volume licensing and start taking a cut of the sale.
This is like going to EMI and asking to license their entire catalog for a new mp3 downloading website. Eventually Apple and Amazon got them to do it, but this is like asking them in 2001.
On the other hand, with the exception of Nintendo, losing money on specialized console hardware is essentially traditional in the industry. Having to produce specialized gaming systems is the burden you bear in order to get your cut on games, Xbox live subscriptions, and licenced peripherals.
Why would game developers develop games for Nintendo if there was no Nintendo hardware? No-one is going to develop a 'Nintendo game' if it's running on an x86 server and displayed over the Internet.
Consoles startup costs are offset by the fact that most of them end up being profitable later in its lifecycle as parts get cheaper to make through sheer volume and die shrinks. The original Xbox is a notable exception, but that is excused by its 'enter the market at all costs' mantra. It seems to have paid off in the long run.
There is something else to add, Nintendo got away with a cheaper to make console because all they did was basically beef up the Gamecube design. Im not saying its a bad thing, in fact Im 90% positive PS4/XBOX 720 will be the same architectures but with MOREâ.
Hardly. Console manufacturers don't make money on the hardware, they make money on the software. Those that want the best experience (hi-def, surround sound, etc.) will still buy the hardware. Those that don't or can't afford to now don't have to. But they still need to buy the games. Cha-ching! You've now sold a game to someone who didn't have a console. How exactly is this going to hurt them? And EMI's stupidity in not embracing 21st century technology shouldn't be held up as a banner example. I'd like to
Console manufacturers don't make money on the hardware, they make money on the software.
Except of course Nintendo, who is a significant contender. Also, if previous console generations are of any indicator, the current-gen consoles for Microsoft and Sony will eventually turn a profit near the end of their life cycle.
But they still need to buy the games. Cha-ching! You've now sold a game to someone who didn't have a console. How exactly is this going to hurt them?
Both Microsoft and Sony have a problem with it, because it means that some consumers may not buy/rent/whatever the software from them (so they can get their cut in the game sales) and may instead by from the other current-gen offering.
And that's why, in a nut shell, why all three major console players wouldn't see much to gain with more to lose by going along with Gaikai.
Well, I guess your argument is pretty solid. It can be hard to argue how you would do nothing gain when you're getting a larger audience...
But the we have to remember that some people really like control, and don't like relinquishing it. A point I didn't make in my previous post that I should have is that each of the big three console guys have some sort of service that is part of their system. Even in the case of Nintendo, where... well, they don't have much that many people would care about, but Nintendo
I disagree. It doesn't make much sense for MS to release Halo 4 or Sony to release Little Big Planet 2 right away, but what about their backed catalog? It wouldn't hurt Nintendo (or anyone else) to release older games (everything from old arcacde through the last generation) on this kind of a service. It's just one more way to take people's money.
Heck. Maybe after playing Zelda or Halo 1 or something, I'd go out and buy the new version of the console, thus increasing revnue.
Likewise.. 1 meg DSL is all we have here. The other negative, from a gamer perspective, is that this does away with resale of old software.. The used game market. I also took away from this, is that it is scaled down and in a window based on your bandwidth. Something like my connection would get 640x480 or something like that.
Having read the first 2 pages of TFA, I still don't see how fast of a connection you need for these to become playable. I mean, where I live, the best connection you can get is a ~1 Megabit DSL connection.
Really? Here in Portugal the *minimum* you can get is 3Mbps at about 20, and we have expensive ISPs compared to most other countries in Europe. And a new ISP is saying they'll offer symmetrical 50Mbps for 15 without any subscription to keep you locked.
How exactly are they reducing the latency from the controller to the cloud? Let alone the roundtrip latency of the video/sound.
The thing that people are missing is that the application is actually now much closer to the Internet with a service like this. Take World of Warcraft for example, if you party with someone and you're both using this service, there is basically no lag between you and him. No more players jumping around on screen showing or actions executed out of order. And which message do you think has more overhead, "move player1 to position 35272,123, cast heal on player2", or "move mouse to position 1323,42, click".
In the video he talks about having a sub 20ms ping. I think the idea is that they would setup lots of smaller servers spread out geographically to reduce the amount of lag as much as possible. What people perhaps overlook is that games naturally have quite a large lag already, once you've pressed a button it takes up to 1 frame for that change to be registered, another frame to update the physics / animation etc, and finally a frame to render based on the previously calculated physics information. In a 30FPS game that's between 66-100ms, and that's assuming a really damn good engine which is responsive, which a lot of game engines aren't. There was an article on Gamasutra on this very topic [gamasutra.com] about a year ago, if you want to read more. If the check out the third page [gamasutra.com] of that article you'll see the response times for some popular games, and you might be suprised!
Moderately interesting article, though it would be more interesting IMHO to see something similar done for PC games and user interface more generically.
What I don't understand about your post though...
On my cable modem connection right now, my ping to a dns server generally are between 20-30ms. Let's say pressing a key and transmitting it to "the cloud" takes 25ms on average. Now it's input to the game, the game's 66ms processing time takes place, and the result is streamed back to me...30ms+
We're now at a minimum of over 110ms latency assuming everything runs full speed and we don't get any "buffering" etc...
Now if ping times are closer to 40-50ms... I would expect that would be fairly unplayable...
On my cable modem connection right now, my ping to a dns server generally are between 20-30ms. Let's say pressing a key and transmitting it to "the cloud" takes 25ms on average. Now it's input to the game, the game's 66ms processing time takes place, and the result is streamed back to me...30ms+
Ping is roundtrip time. So it only takes 10-15ms to reach server, and only 10-15ms to return. For a total of approximately 1 frame delay. The real issues isn't latency, it's packet loss and bandwidth.
I don't disagree that games CAN be made playable...but afaik, with the games you list--unreal, quake, etc--they have at various times implemented client side prediction and other methods to minimize the effect of lag. I remember in the days of quake1 when anyone with a sub-100 ping was a lpb:p I don't know how many games will ever be designed to work specifically with this kind of 3rd-party hosting.
Long story short, I don't ever see this technology in the near future working for that huge group of games that falls into the genre of "twitch" gaming.
Exactly. And there is video compression and decompression delay. And, on top of that, current low-latency applications don't send much data. Do you still get low latency if you're receiving at 1MBit/s or higher? In both directions? Reliably? There can be no client-side prediction to smooth out lag: your connection must be perfect all of the time.
I don't believe in this idea at all. I don't think they've done the math correctly. I'm sure it works wonderfully on their LAN, but over the Internet..?
He wasn't using a LAN in the video. He was using an ordinary Internet connection. He explains this in his blog.
Latency only really becomes an issue with FPS games. Even if FPSs don't turn out to work very well this still leaves a massive amount of content that isn't so latency-dependent.
There are quite a few free-to-play MMOs that currently work like this, e.g. FusionFall. They play just fine.
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday July 05, @05:21PM (#28589073)
I'd see the biggest benefit of something like this is NO CHEATING, which is the bane of most PC games, FPS types especially. It's pretty hard to be running a wall hack on your client if you only get sent an already rendered image from a central server!
Think of this...
You're at home, you log onto Gaikai, and see a PS2 RPG you always wanted to play. Awesome! So you start playing it on the PC. The next day, you have to fly out somewhere (business trip, home for the holidays), and while you're at the airport, you use your iPhone and continue playing your game. No need to copy your emulator files over, deal with incompatibilities, buggy software (there isn't even a ps2 emu for iPhone and I doubt its powerful enough). While on your trip, you decide to retire
I think this will open a whole new market for gaming to people who either never own consoles or people that do own consoles, and want to play last generation titles that they missed out on and no longer own the older system or don't; have it hooked up anymore (especially now that Sony took out PS2 backwards compatibility)
You really think so? Beyond really hardcore gamers, I don't think many people go back to play old games beyond certain classics... Most games just REALLY don't pass the test of time that well.
I mean as an example, I have a hard time going back to play Morrowind after Oblivion...and Morrowind is a game that STILL has a very active community. Likewise, Baldur's gate 1 after playing Baldur's gate 2 (or BG2 now at all), etc--they just don't satisfy the same way they used to. Graphics, interface, the whole packa
I'd love to have this available for personal implementation. Granted - I'm thinking of very niche use. But I've attempted similar things with VNC and WoW in the past - with painful results. I'm not expecting to take my remote display in to a raid or battleground. But it'd be nice to be able to do auction house tasks, crafting, mailbox, banks, etc. wherever I happen to be at the time; reasonably quick tasks where a little latency isn't an issue.
Of course - it looks like their intent goes well beyond this.
Imagine being at a friend's and being able to stream your own games in this method. That would be the best of both worlds, you have the killer rig at home for the latest and greatest, and you can stream your games while on the go.
This may be the future of gaming, eventually supplanting console and PC gaming.
Reasons :
1. This is a DRM system that would be nearly impossible to beat. As long as the game code is only given to these hosts, it would be vastly more difficult to pirate games. Not impossible - workers at the hosting company could leak the game to the internet, but it would be much more difficult.
Strong DRM means the publishers would get paid for every game they sell, yet they could easily offer fully functional 'demos' of the game, or sell time for a game. It might be easier for a lesser known publisher to sell 10 hours of a game for $10 than the entire game for $50.
2. It removes the need for the users to buy expensive hardware, whether that be a console or a high end gaming PC. You instead just lease time on the big iron. More advanced games with more advanced graphics would become available much sooner, since publishers wouldn't have to wait for the next generation of console to become common with consumers, or for PC owners to finally get upgrade their graphics cards. A publisher could offer games with state of the art, photo realistic graphics much sooner : it would just cost more per hour to play a game like that.
3. It solves the nightmare of hardware incompatibility and hardware failures. Since your netbook/living room console/old PC would merely be decoding video, there would be far fewer ways things could go wrong.
Problems : using flash is not a long term solution, flash has many problems : later generations of this service will need their own, optimized decoder code. ISPs will have to work with the companies offering hosted games, and configure their networks to deliver the ultra low latency, guaranteed bandwidth needed for a gaming session to actually work.
I think this idea is going to take off. It'll be a few years before ISPs really get their act together to support this kind of service, but it will gradually happen, and I think it will completely supplant the game console.
Am not going to start the familiar rant that DRM is evil. The fact is that a stronger DRM will enable stronger restrictions on usage while freeing PC's from the debilitating effects of DRM and Virus [theregister.co.uk] This does not necessarily translate to better games or even more demos. On the contrary, it will lead to more profit taking and more of the same crap games. For instance, Company of Heroes was ground-breaking when it came out. I upgraded my PC to play it. The subsequent Opposing Fronts was even more ground breaking.
A big part of my job for the last ten years has been running game servers for PC-based video games (Counter-Strike, Battlefield, etc - your standard dedicated-server based games, mostly FPS).
Over the years as games have become more complicated, the trend has been for these games to consume more and more CPU. They support more players, they're doing complicated collision detection and physics and tracking stats and doing all sorts of other things. CPU usage and memory usage just goes up and up and up.
The next step in the evolution of gaming sofwtware is to host it on a large server -- what can we call it? Hmm, it's kind of centralized or main center of application execution; and they all execute in the same framework -- maybe Mainframework, or Mainframe for short? Once we do that, we can allocate slices of time to each game that's running -- at computer speeds, there would never be a noticeable delay to the user! We'll even have the screen rendering done on this "mainframe", and just push the screen to the end user.
When are people going to start realizing that the "cloud" is an old idea with new hardware, and that reinventing a concept by putting it on the 'new' cloud platform isn't a business model that stands on its own?
Indeed. Actually I would have loved if Slashdot had been there since prehistory.
The hot air balloon is invented : "Oh noes now the evil government will use that to spy on its citizens from above!"
The telephone is invented : "Oh great, one more way for the government to effortlessly eavesdrop on our conversations!"
The television is invented : "Pfft, as if newspapers and the radio weren't enough means of government propaganda!"
Internet multiplayer games are invented : "Waaah waaah 500 ms latencies over my 33.6 modem"
Mankind is invented : "Oh great, so now I can meet people who'll try to rob me, kill me, defraud me or have offsprings with me!"
Romantic and sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex are invented : "If I wanted to coexist with living creatures who'd suck me and give me orgasms I'd get some leeches and stick porn on their backs"
Next step (Score:5, Interesting)
Sell out?
Who'd buy these guys, a gaming company or a streaming media company?
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Re:Next step (Score:5, Interesting)
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this is DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop giving it press.
Gaming is already ultra-accessible, this is the solution to a problem that, for consumers, doesn't exist. The only people this will benefit is the game companies.
I will not rent my game software.
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Re:this is DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as the service doesn't expand into the realm of hi-def gameplay (which is unlikely considering the horrible state of our Internet bandwidth) you'll minimize the exposure of Nvidia, ATI, and console manufacturers.
This service won't supplant buying high end consoles or PC hardware -- this will still be necessary if you want the best gaming experience. But it will allow those who cannot afford to upgrade their hardware to play the games they currently can't. It's a win-win for everyone.
Parent
Re:this is DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
This service will likely cost more for a few months of subscription fees than a midrange video card does, and a netbook to play one of these streamed video games on costs about the same as a budget/midrange gaming PC. PC "gaming hardware" is hardly "insanely" expensive and for PC games this isn't terribly useful unless you have a portable machine and a quick internet connection, things that often don't go together.
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Re:this is DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
However, if I can use a netbook (rather than a $2000 15 pound gaming notebook) paired with in-flight wi-fi and play my 360 games on the airplane, it might be worth it.
For the cost of playing a 360 game streamed over satellite wi-fi, you could buy the best laptop on the planet.
And that's assuming that several people playing games on the same aircraft could even get enough bandwidth in the first place. Isn't the total bandwidth to one aircraft around 512kps?
Parent
Re:this is DRM (Score:5, Informative)
And that's assuming that several people playing games on the same aircraft could even get enough bandwidth in the first place. Isn't the total bandwidth to one aircraft around 512kps?
Nevermind that - if you're going to use this on an airplane the lag (aka latency) is absolutely going to KILL you unless you're playing some turn-based game, and even there input lag will probably make you want to stop playing it.
np: Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Joy Maker Machinery (Twice Born Men)
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The millions playing World of Warcrack beg to differ. The software is useless without the monthly access fee.
Having read TFA... (Score:2, Interesting)
Um... yes? "How many Nintendo games are going to appear on OnLive? The answer is none," Perry adds. "And some of the best games in the world are from Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft... I'm already talking to Nintendo. I'm talking to all the major publishers.
So in the end this service is going to end up as nothing more than PC games? Its not a good sign when a company who makes most of the classic games that people remember rejects your ideas, and I'm not sure Sony or MS wants to jump on the bandwagon (though it wouldn't surprise me if MS bought the company
Re:Having read TFA... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Having read TFA... (Score:4, Insightful)
Its not a good sign when a company who makes most of the classic games that people remember rejects your ideas, and I'm not sure Sony or MS wants to jump on the bandwagon (though it wouldn't surprise me if MS bought the company if they managed to turn out a decent product).
The console manufacturers have everything to lose and nothing to gain by helping out. If this service succedes no one will be buying specalized gaming systems anymore and this company will be buying comodity hardware to run these games. At best they could each have their own roku type box that connects to the service. Even with the pc games eventually this company will end up wanting volume licensing and start taking a cut of the sale.
This is like going to EMI and asking to license their entire catalog for a new mp3 downloading website. Eventually Apple and Amazon got them to do it, but this is like asking them in 2001.
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Why would game developers develop games for Nintendo if there was no Nintendo hardware? No-one is going to develop a 'Nintendo game' if it's running on an x86 server and displayed over the Internet.
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"...losing money on specialized hardware "
Consoles startup costs are offset by the fact that most of them end up being profitable later in its lifecycle as parts get cheaper to make through sheer volume and die shrinks. The original Xbox is a notable exception, but that is excused by its 'enter the market at all costs' mantra. It seems to have paid off in the long run.
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There is something else to add, Nintendo got away with a cheaper to make console because all they did was basically beef up the Gamecube design. Im not saying its a bad thing, in fact Im 90% positive PS4/XBOX 720 will be the same architectures but with MOREâ.
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And EMI's stupidity in not embracing 21st century technology shouldn't be held up as a banner example. I'd like to
Re:Having read TFA... (Score:4, Interesting)
Console manufacturers don't make money on the hardware, they make money on the software.
Except of course Nintendo, who is a significant contender. Also, if previous console generations are of any indicator, the current-gen consoles for Microsoft and Sony will eventually turn a profit near the end of their life cycle.
But they still need to buy the games. Cha-ching! You've now sold a game to someone who didn't have a console. How exactly is this going to hurt them?
Both Microsoft and Sony have a problem with it, because it means that some consumers may not buy/rent/whatever the software from them (so they can get their cut in the game sales) and may instead by from the other current-gen offering.
And that's why, in a nut shell, why all three major console players wouldn't see much to gain with more to lose by going along with Gaikai.
Parent
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Well, I guess your argument is pretty solid. It can be hard to argue how you would do nothing gain when you're getting a larger audience...
But the we have to remember that some people really like control, and don't like relinquishing it. A point I didn't make in my previous post that I should have is that each of the big three console guys have some sort of service that is part of their system. Even in the case of Nintendo, where... well, they don't have much that many people would care about, but Nintendo
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I disagree. It doesn't make much sense for MS to release Halo 4 or Sony to release Little Big Planet 2 right away, but what about their backed catalog? It wouldn't hurt Nintendo (or anyone else) to release older games (everything from old arcacde through the last generation) on this kind of a service. It's just one more way to take people's money.
Heck. Maybe after playing Zelda or Halo 1 or something, I'd go out and buy the new version of the console, thus increasing revnue.
Makes sense to me, as long as you
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Likewise.. 1 meg DSL is all we have here. The other negative, from a gamer perspective, is that this does away with resale of old software.. The used game market. I also took away from this, is that it is scaled down and in a window based on your bandwidth. Something like my connection would get 640x480 or something like that.
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Having read the first 2 pages of TFA, I still don't see how fast of a connection you need for these to become playable. I mean, where I live, the best connection you can get is a ~1 Megabit DSL connection.
Really? Here in Portugal the *minimum* you can get is 3Mbps at about 20, and we have expensive ISPs compared to most other countries in Europe. And a new ISP is saying they'll offer symmetrical 50Mbps for 15 without any subscription to keep you locked.
Did I miss the ping time revolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
How exactly are they reducing the latency from the controller to the cloud? Let alone the roundtrip latency of the video/sound.
Anything more than 100ms ping time is gunna kill this thing.
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How exactly are they reducing the latency from the controller to the cloud? Let alone the roundtrip latency of the video/sound.
The thing that people are missing is that the application is actually now much closer to the Internet with a service like this. Take World of Warcraft for example, if you party with someone and you're both using this service, there is basically no lag between you and him. No more players jumping around on screen showing or actions executed out of order. And which message do you think has more overhead, "move player1 to position 35272,123, cast heal on player2", or "move mouse to position 1323,42, click".
Re:Did I miss the ping time revolution? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Did I miss the ping time revolution? (Score:4, Insightful)
Moderately interesting article, though it would be more interesting IMHO to see something similar done for PC games and user interface more generically.
What I don't understand about your post though...
On my cable modem connection right now, my ping to a dns server generally are between 20-30ms. Let's say pressing a key and transmitting it to "the cloud" takes 25ms on average. Now it's input to the game, the game's 66ms processing time takes place, and the result is streamed back to me...30ms+
We're now at a minimum of over 110ms latency assuming everything runs full speed and we don't get any "buffering" etc...
Now if ping times are closer to 40-50ms ... I would expect that would be fairly unplayable...
Am I wrong?
Parent
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On my cable modem connection right now, my ping to a dns server generally are between 20-30ms. Let's say pressing a key and transmitting it to "the cloud" takes 25ms on average. Now it's input to the game, the game's 66ms processing time takes place, and the result is streamed back to me...30ms+
Ping is roundtrip time. So it only takes 10-15ms to reach server, and only 10-15ms to return. For a total of approximately 1 frame delay. The real issues isn't latency, it's packet loss and bandwidth.
Re:Did I miss the ping time revolution? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't disagree that games CAN be made playable...but afaik, with the games you list--unreal, quake, etc--they have at various times implemented client side prediction and other methods to minimize the effect of lag. I remember in the days of quake1 when anyone with a sub-100 ping was a lpb :p I don't know how many games will ever be designed to work specifically with this kind of 3rd-party hosting.
Long story short, I don't ever see this technology in the near future working for that huge group of games that falls into the genre of "twitch" gaming.
Parent
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Exactly. And there is video compression and decompression delay. And, on top of that, current low-latency applications don't send much data. Do you still get low latency if you're receiving at 1MBit/s or higher? In both directions? Reliably? There can be no client-side prediction to smooth out lag: your connection must be perfect all of the time.
I don't believe in this idea at all. I don't think they've done the math correctly. I'm sure it works wonderfully on their LAN, but over the Internet..?
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Latency only really becomes an issue with FPS games. Even if FPSs don't turn out to work very well this still leaves a massive amount of content that isn't so latency-dependent.
There are quite a few free-to-play MMOs that currently work like this, e.g. FusionFall. They play just fine.
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Most gamers don't play 'FPS' games.
No hacking (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd see the biggest benefit of something like this is NO CHEATING, which is the bane of most PC games, FPS types especially. It's pretty hard to be running a wall hack on your client if you only get sent an already rendered image from a central server!
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Alternatively, now there's only one server (farm) you need to own.
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Well it certainly would be more difficult, but you could maintain a collection of the maps in different games then construct overlays based on inputs.
Re:No hacking (Score:5, Informative)
There have been framebuffer capture based aim bots in the past already.
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Pickup, Play, and Resume on Multiple Devices (Score:2, Interesting)
You're at home, you log onto Gaikai, and see a PS2 RPG you always wanted to play. Awesome! So you start playing it on the PC. The next day, you have to fly out somewhere (business trip, home for the holidays), and while you're at the airport, you use your iPhone and continue playing your game. No need to copy your emulator files over, deal with incompatibilities, buggy software (there isn't even a ps2 emu for iPhone and I doubt its powerful enough). While on your trip, you decide to retire
Re: (Score:2)
I think this will open a whole new market for gaming to people who either never own consoles or people that do own consoles, and want to play last generation titles that they missed out on and no longer own the older system or don't; have it hooked up anymore (especially now that Sony took out PS2 backwards compatibility)
You really think so? Beyond really hardcore gamers, I don't think many people go back to play old games beyond certain classics... Most games just REALLY don't pass the test of time that well.
I mean as an example, I have a hard time going back to play Morrowind after Oblivion...and Morrowind is a game that STILL has a very active community. Likewise, Baldur's gate 1 after playing Baldur's gate 2 (or BG2 now at all), etc--they just don't satisfy the same way they used to. Graphics, interface, the whole packa
Personal Implementation (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd love to have this available for personal implementation. Granted - I'm thinking of very niche use. But I've attempted similar things with VNC and WoW in the past - with painful results. I'm not expecting to take my remote display in to a raid or battleground. But it'd be nice to be able to do auction house tasks, crafting, mailbox, banks, etc. wherever I happen to be at the time; reasonably quick tasks where a little latency isn't an issue.
Of course - it looks like their intent goes well beyond this.
I want to run my own server (Score:2)
Imagine being at a friend's and being able to stream your own games in this method. That would be the best of both worlds, you have the killer rig at home for the latest and greatest, and you can stream your games while on the go.
This may be the future (Score:3, Insightful)
This may be the future of gaming, eventually supplanting console and PC gaming.
Reasons :
1. This is a DRM system that would be nearly impossible to beat. As long as the game code is only given to these hosts, it would be vastly more difficult to pirate games. Not impossible - workers at the hosting company could leak the game to the internet, but it would be much more difficult.
Strong DRM means the publishers would get paid for every game they sell, yet they could easily offer fully functional 'demos' of the game, or sell time for a game. It might be easier for a lesser known publisher to sell 10 hours of a game for $10 than the entire game for $50.
2. It removes the need for the users to buy expensive hardware, whether that be a console or a high end gaming PC. You instead just lease time on the big iron. More advanced games with more advanced graphics would become available much sooner, since publishers wouldn't have to wait for the next generation of console to become common with consumers, or for PC owners to finally get upgrade their graphics cards. A publisher could offer games with state of the art, photo realistic graphics much sooner : it would just cost more per hour to play a game like that.
3. It solves the nightmare of hardware incompatibility and hardware failures. Since your netbook/living room console/old PC would merely be decoding video, there would be far fewer ways things could go wrong.
Problems : using flash is not a long term solution, flash has many problems : later generations of this service will need their own, optimized decoder code. ISPs will have to work with the companies offering hosted games, and configure their networks to deliver the ultra low latency, guaranteed bandwidth needed for a gaming session to actually work.
I think this idea is going to take off. It'll be a few years before ISPs really get their act together to support this kind of service, but it will gradually happen, and I think it will completely supplant the game console.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but the publishers would be made extinct, replaced by these types of services.
Why deal with a company specializing in putting boxes on store shelves when this is your new business model?
Re: (Score:2)
Am not going to start the familiar rant that DRM is evil.
The fact is that a stronger DRM will enable stronger restrictions on usage while freeing PC's from the debilitating effects of DRM and Virus [theregister.co.uk]
This does not necessarily translate to better games or even more demos.
On the contrary, it will lead to more profit taking and more of the same crap games.
For instance, Company of Heroes was ground-breaking when it came out. I upgraded my PC to play it. The subsequent Opposing Fronts was even more ground breaking.
Scalability? (Score:2)
A big part of my job for the last ten years has been running game servers for PC-based video games (Counter-Strike, Battlefield, etc - your standard dedicated-server based games, mostly FPS).
Over the years as games have become more complicated, the trend has been for these games to consume more and more CPU. They support more players, they're doing complicated collision detection and physics and tracking stats and doing all sorts of other things. CPU usage and memory usage just goes up and up and up.
Say we
No Thanks. I'll play my own games on my hardware (Score:2)
I hate these silly game streaming ideas. Its too limiting. I would rather own my games and play them on my own hardware.
Its just a form of DRM. I would rather own POWERFUL computer hardware and the software I run on it.
Next: timesharing! (Score:4, Informative)
When are people going to start realizing that the "cloud" is an old idea with new hardware, and that reinventing a concept by putting it on the 'new' cloud platform isn't a business model that stands on its own?
Re:Cloud Gaming?! (Score:5, Funny)
Cloud huffing. Although you'll want to be sure of what's in the cloud before you huff it. A tubgirl when you expect it the less can knock you out.
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. Actually I would have loved if Slashdot had been there since prehistory.
The hot air balloon is invented : "Oh noes now the evil government will use that to spy on its citizens from above!"
The telephone is invented : "Oh great, one more way for the government to effortlessly eavesdrop on our conversations!"
The television is invented : "Pfft, as if newspapers and the radio weren't enough means of government propaganda!"
Internet multiplayer games are invented : "Waaah waaah 500 ms latencies over my 33.6 modem"
Mankind is invented : "Oh great, so now I can meet people who'll try to rob me, kill me, defraud me or have offsprings with me!"
Romantic and sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex are invented : "If I wanted to coexist with living creatures who'd suck me and give me orgasms I'd get some leeches and stick porn on their backs"
Basements are invented : "HOLY FUCK SHIT YEAH!!"
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