The Tiny Console Killers Taking On the PS4 and Xbox 720 349
An anonymous reader writes "As the next generation of consoles looms, we've seen a growing trend towards low price, compact alternatives such as the Ouya and GameStick, many of which run on the Android mobile platform. But this article on the trend raises a very good point: through the use of cloud computing and game streaming technology, it's entirely possible these machines will be able to keep pace with the powerhouse technology inside the Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox 720, and perhaps even overtake them. After all, if these little boxes can simply stream from powerful servers, how can the stalwarts of gaming keep up?"
Re:how can the stalwarts of gaming keep up? (Score:4, Informative)
The summary doesn't make it clear but what the article is talking about is streaming from your own more powerful PC via Wi-Fi, which apparently one of the products has the ability to do so.
Now I don't really buy into that as coinciding with what people want but at least the concept is plausible no matter where you are situated or your Internet situation. (Consoles usually stay at home as well).
Re:latency (Score:5, Informative)
You need to add data transmission time to the network latency. You need to wait for an entire screen to be transferred before it can be displayed. If it's compressed, there's latency in the compression too. That's why VOIP codecs sacrifice quality for latency, waiting for 1152 samples before encoding an MP3 frame takes too long.
Re:latency (Score:5, Informative)
Re:how can the stalwarts of gaming keep up? (Score:4, Informative)