Sony Announces Game Streaming Service 144
You may remember Gaikai, a company built on the idea of cloud-based gaming. The idea was that a remote server would run the game and stream all graphics and sound to a player's device, which would allow underpowered or obsolete machines to run modern, graphically demanding games on high settings. In 2012, Sony purchased Gaikai. Now, they've announced at CES that their cloud gaming tech (dubbed 'PlayStation Now') is just about ready for the public. CES attendees will be able to try it out, and Sony will begin a closed beta test in the U.S. later this month. Full release is planned for summer. It will first support streaming to PS3s, PS4s, and certain Sony TV models. Later, it will expand more broadly to various non-Sony "internet-connected devices." Players will have the option to rent games or to subscribe for continued access. Forbes reports, "According to Sony, gamers who own disc- or digital-based games will not have access to those games via PS Now free of charge."
Re:Everyone knows that v1.2 of Doom is the right v (Score:4, Informative)
It was the first version with the "Nightmare" skill level, as well as not having yet removed the swastika room. Many, many little changes were made to Doom up until v1.9, which was the final one.
Aha I just played through Doom 1 and I was damned sure when I lowered that particular patform that it formed a swastika and was confused by its slightly different shape. I wondered if I misremembered it. Thanks for clearing that up.
As for streamed games relative to versions that ship has sailed. Steam only sends you the latest version, and sure you can disable updates but what does that really get you exactly? You can't easily go backwards or install an old version later, and you usually need the new version to do any kind of multiplayer.
And the same stuff applies to disc based console games too. Sure you have the disk... 1.0 but if 1.2 was the best and 1.9 is the current... you have 1.0 or 1.9... good luck ever getting 1.2 on your xbo?? or ps??.
Even so I dislike intensely streamed games for many scenarios. But it might not be all bad for certain competitive genres if the lag is reduced enough -- as it can dramatically reduce cheating.
Re:What video providers use MKV? (Score:4, Informative)
MKV has some amazingly useful and underutilized features. Everyone is (or should be) familiar with how it can do multiple audio/video/subtitle streams. It's chapter functionality is also really nice. The best and neatest thing is it's ability to pull in a separate file for a chapter. So instead of having 30 different TV show files each with the same opening and closing scene, you have those two scenes as separate files which are mixed in on the fly.
Data deduplication is a wonderful thing.