Why Google Stadia Will Be a Major Problem For Many American Players 185
Earlier today, Google launched its long-awaited "Stadia" cloud gaming service at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Unlike services from Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo, Stadia is powered by Google's worldwide data centers, allowing users to play games across a variety of platforms -- browsers, computers, TVs, and mobile devices -- all via the internet at a 4K resolution. One major problem with Stadia, which Google didn't mention in its presentation, is that it will require a ton of bandwidth, testing the limits of data caps that most U.S. internet service providers have.
"Most US ISPs cap their customers' bandwidth usage, usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 GB per month. And streaming 4K content eats up about 7GB an hour," Steve Bowling from YouTube gaming channel GameXplain tweeted. "And that's based on Netflix's publicly available guidelines for 4K video content, which is shot at 24 fps, a far cry from 60fps, meaning content at 4k60 could be more costly." He added: "Your average consumer likely isn't rocking a 100Mbps+ connection, and in some parts of America such options aren't even available, limiting Stadia's potential reach. And if you are, that cap can come at you fast, especially considering most folks are going to use their internet for more than just streaming games. Most ISPs offer additional data at a premium, but how many are going to want to pay that premium to stream 4K games?"
What's unknown is whether or not Google will work with ISPs to help alleviate this concern. PCWord also notes that there's no option to download and install a game if you want, which is an option available on Steam's streaming service. "You're always streaming it, and presumably copies sold through the Google Play store won't come with more traditional versions from other storefronts," reports PCWorld. "You're either all-in on Stadia and streaming or you're not."
UPDATE: A Google spokesperson told Kotaku they were able to deliver 1080p, 60 FPS gameplay for users with 25 Mbps connections. They also said that they expect Stadia to deliver 4K, 60 FPS for people with "approximately the same bandwidth requirements." How exactly they will achieve this is still unclear.
"Most US ISPs cap their customers' bandwidth usage, usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 GB per month. And streaming 4K content eats up about 7GB an hour," Steve Bowling from YouTube gaming channel GameXplain tweeted. "And that's based on Netflix's publicly available guidelines for 4K video content, which is shot at 24 fps, a far cry from 60fps, meaning content at 4k60 could be more costly." He added: "Your average consumer likely isn't rocking a 100Mbps+ connection, and in some parts of America such options aren't even available, limiting Stadia's potential reach. And if you are, that cap can come at you fast, especially considering most folks are going to use their internet for more than just streaming games. Most ISPs offer additional data at a premium, but how many are going to want to pay that premium to stream 4K games?"
What's unknown is whether or not Google will work with ISPs to help alleviate this concern. PCWord also notes that there's no option to download and install a game if you want, which is an option available on Steam's streaming service. "You're always streaming it, and presumably copies sold through the Google Play store won't come with more traditional versions from other storefronts," reports PCWorld. "You're either all-in on Stadia and streaming or you're not."
UPDATE: A Google spokesperson told Kotaku they were able to deliver 1080p, 60 FPS gameplay for users with 25 Mbps connections. They also said that they expect Stadia to deliver 4K, 60 FPS for people with "approximately the same bandwidth requirements." How exactly they will achieve this is still unclear.
Bandwidth (Score:3)
If bandwidth is concerned, it is no different than watching Netflix, Hulu, Twitch, Prime Video, or YouTube. Consumers are already aware of their data caps if they're hitting them.
it is hugely different (Score:5, Informative)
If bandwidth is concerned, it is no different than watching Netflix, Hulu, Twitch, Prime Video, or YouTube.
Sure it is, much different.
First of all, most of that content you get from those providers is not even in 4k yet.
Secondly, all the TV/movie streaming providers compress the video quite a lot more than a game can, without noticeably losing lots of detail. In movies or shows the focus is not so much on tiny minute details bu instead on large figures on the screen.
Lastly, most people spend a LOT more time on a game they like than movies or TV. I know in the times when I am really into a game I put way more hours into gaming than I ever would watching video content.
So this service will indeed sneak up on people who otherwise never notice bandwidth caps (which is I would say, most people). This people are also not truly aware of data caps from a practical sense since it does not affect them today.
Re:it is hugely different (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. I have gigabit up and down, from Google. They can't currently stream YouTube at 4k without buffering, it stalls occasionally. Seems like they're going to have some growing pains on this while they create gaming content servers in every local area.
The good news is that they'll probably be underutilized for a long time, until more people get good enough connections for it to matter.
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I used wired control gear for my gaming on PC because I can not stand the lag of wireless. Oh yeah I would love trying to stream a game, now not on a 1.5 metre cable or say 3.0m of radio transmission that has to be reprocessed but I don't know, tens of kilometre or hundreds of kilometres or even thousands of kilometres, my inputs and their outputs, none of the outputs processed locally.
The reality here, really shite gaming and online, your will be slaughtered by players running locally processed outputs, s
Re: it is hugely different (Score:2)
Secondly, all the TV/movie streaming providers compress the video quite a lot more than a game can
I don't think you quite understand streaming gaming.
Don't worry; it sucks more once you do.
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Not to mention that if you pause your movie to go make some dinner, visit the bathroom, walk the dog etc. then your download is paused.
If you pause your game for the same reason you stream the pause screen for that long.
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Are you certain that's how they implement sending the pause screen? Why wouldn't they do the same thing for game streaming as they do for movie streaming?
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First off the stream would have to understand what the pause screen IS, which will only be possible in games made specifically for streaming. Secondly the pause screen may be a menu, inventory or the like - or perhaps, that is what players will prefer to use rather than a freeze-frame or similar.
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So you're saying there are a handful of possibilities for pausing, on a service so far has a total of 3 titles listed as being available, to figure out a way for their services to know when the game is paused? It sounds like games need to be made for Stadia, not just any game ever made that I can install. So Stadia puts in a requirement to be on their service, when you pause you send out a pause signal that the server gets notified and sends that to the client that it won't be updating the screen until it r
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Secondly, all the TV/movie streaming providers compress the video quite a lot more than a game can, without noticeably losing lots of detail.
This. Low latency video encoders are significantly lower quality than offline ones that can do multiple passes over the entire video stream. The only solution is to crank up the bitrate.
Re:Bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
It's completely different. A 4K HDR Netflix stream might be efficiently encoded at 10-15Mbps, but a realtime low latency gaming stream would need 50-100Mbps to get similar quality.
Efficiently compressing VOD is done by making multiple passes through the file, using information from earlier and later frames (up to +/- 30 seconds) to find redundancies that can be coded, using the results of prior passes to find segments of video that can be encoded with fewer bits without noticeable quality loss or which need more bits to look good, and using CPU/GPU intensive compression algorithms which can operate slower than real time. It makes sense to make every effort to save every bit when the video only needs to be encoded once but the output will need to be uploaded millions of times.
Live streaming video is tougher - You can't make multiple passes through the file but usually you can tolerate some delay, often anywhere from 5 - 30 seconds, so you can still use later frames to find redundancies. You have 1 producer streaming to an audience, so there's only one stream that needs to be compressed to serve many end users, and it makes sense to throw a lot of power into that compression since multiple viewers can benefit from the results.
Real time gaming, on the other hand, means you need an encoder for every user. That practically requires using less intensive and less efficient encoders, and thus more bits are needed to encode the same quality. Games tend to have a lot of small details such as text labels, so you can't drop the quality too much. And the stream has to be encoded with extremely low latency, which means you can't look at any later frames to find redundancies, you can only look at a few past frames.
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If Google has invented the ability to predict the next 30 seconds of the future I would LOVE to see the technical specs.
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Good point. Then again modern CPU and GPU's can't predict 5 seconds into the future, the whole error rate, hit, miss and branch prediction is kinda staggering at just how much overcompensation actually happens. The very best is a 'near guess' and then it going down from there. Similar to the ($1/\sqrt{x}$) aka Quake's inverse square root. [betterexplained.com] A near guess, and fast dirty refinements. Even then, unpredictable things happen.
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Bandwidth isn't going to be the big problem for game streaming. Latency is. If you don't have a sub 25ms ping time to the server, your game play experience is going to be crap in first person shooters.
Add 100ms mpeg compression latency (Score:3)
Whatever latency you have to the server, add another 100ms or so to compress and decompress the video stream.
Tic-tac-toe will work great.
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LOL no they can compress with specific hardware in real-time, like every broadcaster is doing
Real time is rate, not latency. Live TV 10-30 seco (Score:2)
Live TV is 10-30 seconds behind.
Real time encoding and decoding means that if the source is one hour long, the output will last for one hour. It does NOT mean that it somehow violates the laws of physics and does things without taking any time to do it. So if you press the button to start encoding and 1 minute later the output starts, then when you press stop it takes no more than 1 minute for the output to finish, that's real time encoding.
"Low latency" video hardware is defined as three frames (100ms) o
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The only games that will work well for this are games which are designed for this. I'm trying to imagine an interface which isn't effected by latency and I'm having a little trouble... but I'm sure it can be done. None of these companies seem interested in developing games for these ser
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If FPS gamers are switching to wired input devices to beat latency on wireless device tech, I don't think they'll be itching to send their control inputs over the internet anytime soon.
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I doubt visual quality will be an issue... remember, this is the generation that loves streaming 96kbps MP3 files from Pandora! They don't give no shits bout quality
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The music is all synth pop. It's entirely artificial to begin with, so the compression doesn't really affect it very much. Nobody listens to solo piano music at 96k.
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There's a lot of difference between what you tolerate hearing and what you tolerate seeing.
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If bandwidth is concerned, it is no different than watching Netflix, Hulu, Twitch, Prime Video, or YouTube. Consumers are already aware of their data caps if they're hitting them.
Data caps aren't a huge issue for anyone with a wired broadband connection. It takes a lot of streaming to hit a 500 GB quota in a month, you need to be doing 1.5 mbps 24/7 just to reach it... And I haven't had a 500 GB quota in years.
The problem is going to be latency, not data caps. Currently streaming services are relatively stutter free because they buffer content, they can do this because the content is static so they can easily download it in advance. Amazon regularly detects my connection as being
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Why the fuck would I even want this? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is worse than renting games. Streaming them too? I have great fibre service where I live and I'd still rather just install them on my top end gaming pc and enjoy them with the best experience I can get.
Why would I want to lag in a single player game, for instance?
A solution looking for a problem.
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Why would I ever want this solution from Google? It'll be dead inside a decade.
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I predict it will be abandoned in 3 years and shut down in 5.
How many people have high end gaming PCs? (Score:2)
Why would I want to lag in a single player game, for instance?
What makes you think there is lag?
It's not like streaming is new, and most people report the experience with a good connection, does not have noticeable lag. I'm sure there are some but is there enough that most people would notice, I'm not sure...
I think that there is a pretty large market of people who would rather choose much better looking graphics over slightly more lag. To maintain a really high end gaming PC takes a lot of time and effor
Re:How many people have high end gaming PCs? (Score:4, Insightful)
To maintain a really high end gaming PC takes a lot of time and effort, more than most people are willing to invest - this service is a way to experience high-end graphics with none of the hardware pains that comes with owning and maintaining a gaming PC.
You're trying to make both sides of the argument simultaneously. The people who aren't willing to invest time and effort into a highly optimized experience are the target demographic of game consoles. It's not a dig, it's a reality - they offer a solid experience with virtually no configuration required. Many have exclusive titles and franchises that make them even more appealing to that demographic. This group is already a solved problem.
The #PCMasterRace that doesn't want to spend a massive amount of time or money can go to my local Microcenter. They can pick up a Powerspec with an 8th gen i5, 16GB RAM, and GTX1060 for $800. It's not earth shattering, but it'll play most games at a quality commensurate with what this service can provide, and again, doesn't require a massive investment of time, effort, or money.
If graphics quality is a big enough draw that the aforementioned $800 machine isn't enough, we're dealing with enthusiasts. To that end, that's where tinkering and modding starts to become a part of the experience, but if one is intent on avoiding cracking open the case, then that's where Alienware / Origin / Falcon Northwest / Sager come into play with their four figure price tags.
Streaming doesn't meaningfully address any of these better than the existing solutions. About the only market for this is one where paying $20/month which covers both hardware and games is seen as superior to a few one-off purchases. There is one, but I'd argue that it's even smaller than the enthusiast community who's willing to drop $500 on a graphics card. Really, this primarily benefits the companies behind the streaming more than it benefits the end users who play them.
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What makes you think there is lag?
Physics.
this service is a way to experience high-end graphics
Is it fuck. It'll be 4K with all the details turned down, especially if it's at 60fps.
none of the hardware pains that comes with owning and maintaining a gaming PC
Lets see. Go online, buy PC. Plug in keyboard, monitor, mouse. Install Steam. Play games.
Yep, seriously fucking painful that. Ouch.
If Google is smart, they would offer games that are PC only and not on consoles
Indeed, because turn based strategy games and visual novels are about all you'll be able to play with the latency involved.
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To maintain a really high end gaming PC takes a lot of time and effort, more than most people are willing to invest
I have spend 0 hours maintaining my high end gaming PC this month, about 10 mins last month clearing a bit of space on my SSD for a new game.
If you spend any significant amount of time managing your gaming PC, you really suck at it and should probably go and join the ranks of the Filthy Console Peasants who spend their time swapping discs(oh, how quaint). Long gone are the days where you need to program custom autoexec.bat files, if you're truly lazy Steam does everything for you (hell, you can even remo
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As a player? There are a few reasons:
Because for online games, it should (in theory) completely eliminate cheaters because they'll no longer be able to use the game's own data against it. (Until AI gets good enough to be able to play games based on the video itself.)
Because it will have better hardware than you do, meaning you should get better graphics than you would on your own hardware.
Because you won't have to download and update the game, it will be instantly available, just about always. Because it's
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Because it will have better hardware than you do, meaning you should get better graphics than you would on your own hardware.
I don't get video encoding artefacts on my hardware. I don't get stuttering graphics due to packet loss between the video card and the monitor.
you won't have to download and update the game, it will be instantly available, just about always
I use less bandwidth downloading the game than I would streaming it.
But the real reason people are pushing game streaming has nothing to do with the players, it's to provide the publishers with perfect DRM. No beating the release date, the servers won't start until the game is out. No more pirating the game - it's only on the servers and can't be played offline
While some game companies will be drooling at the idea they'd need to remove entirely the existing games market to achieve this. Release a game on Stadia, PC and other consoles and you don't get those benefits.
It will also likely be a subscription service: no more paying for the game once and that's the end of the revenue stream, instead it will (likely) be a monthly fee.
Metaboli charged a monthly fee and gave value for it. It also gave me a chance to try many
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Those certainly aren't reasons why I would want it. And my hardware is top of the line and LOCAL so no artifacting or lag.
None of the other reasons is really a positive for ME, the consumer.
My question stands.
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Use a super computer and send the data sets out as the users move around a larger game world in real time.
Better graphics, better looking worlds. More different graphics data than can fit on one ~30~100 gig game download.
The placement of real time ads in data sets.
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Not necessarily 'ads.' Google is probably thinking beyond that. Now, 'suggestive content.' That sounds scientificky and all that stuff.
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This is worse than renting games. Streaming them too?
What's wrong with renting games? I like go-karting and dirt-biking and I don't feel the need to buy every track I want to race on, I've often been to theme parks like Disney Land and not felt a need to own every one of them. I don't see the need to own everything you pay to enjoy.
Why would I want to lag in a single player game, for instance?
Most people have more lag between the video output and the screen generating photons than you get sending a signal across the country. When you look [displaylag.com] at the input, processing and display lag there are a large amount of places you su
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Most people have more lag between the video output and the screen generating photons than you get sending a signal across the country.
Thanks for playing. RF PHY of my cable modem by itself introduces more latency before signal can even travel down the street.
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Most people have more lag between the video output and the screen generating photons than you get sending a signal across the country.
Thanks for playing. RF PHY of my cable modem by itself introduces more latency before signal can even travel down the street.
How much?
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Be careful. He might get dangerous now that you've challenged his acronyms.
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Most people have more lag between the video output and the screen generating photons than you get sending a signal across the country.
I looked at the site you linked. Cheap shit monitors from Acer have input lag at the 9-11ms level. That's lower latency than pinging the ISP gateway my cable modem connects to.
Sure, that includes the wifi latency - but so would streaming. I'm really not seeing any wins here.
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Nah, it's a revenue stream looking for a sucker.
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Frankly anyone shoehorning how they own a "top end gaming pc" into a post where it isn't vital information just comes across as insecure.
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Depends how it works, if you can pay a flat monthly fee to play as many different games as you like that seems like a good deal. Similar to how Netflix is better than Blockbuster, it's not only more convenient but also flat rate for all you can eat.
As for lag, actually many games build in lag now. One of the most famous games is Street Fighter 5. Way back when SF2 became popular there was basically zero lag - the arcade machine reacted to button presses in less than 1 frame (16ms) and any delay was entirely
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I have great fibre service where I live and I'd still rather just install them on my top end gaming pc
I highlighted the reason why you don't want this but other people may.
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Because somehow those same people with slow computers are going to have something like fiber?
Now this will be interesting (Score:2)
I've always figured watching 4K content here and there, I'd never come close to maxing out my bandwidth cap - and indeed I have not.
But it really is true that bandwidth caps everywhere are going to be hit hard if game streaming becomes popular, games you usually play for a lot longer than any movie, even a series... Never mind ISP caps, you could easily see mobile caps being hit even harder and sooner by people streaming games to phones to play them on the go.
Even with Google pushing this you have to wonde
Re:Now this will be interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Not to worry; the way Google operates, the service will be cancelled before anyone has a chance to reach their bandwidth cap.
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This is moving vast amounts of game data in real time every time a person in a game moves around in real time.
Less use of the GPU and CPU, vast amounts of needed graphics and sound data is pushed down to the user playing the game.
Every movement and change in the game is sent up and new data sets get pushed down to the user.
Every hour in game is like downloading select parts of a 30-90 gig game again and again.
That is the data use per day.
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long-awaited? (Score:1)
Who was waiting for this?
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Re:long-awaited? (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, they would be doing it for a fee.
Not everything Google does is about showing you ads. You can pay for their services and they are ad-free, e.g. cloud storage or books/movies on Play.
Given that they don't have ads on movies you buy from them and don't... I don't know, live stream your emails??? it seems bizarre that you would think they would try to do it on this service.
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Personally I have 0 interest in such a product. No thanks Google.
Already Pay for Unlimited (Score:2)
Stadia's purpose does not seem to be gaming... (Score:2)
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Google to shut down Stadia (Score:5, Funny)
Google might as well announce date they will become bored with it and shut it down during launch to save everyone time and guesswork.
The only thing more idiotic and wasteful than the underlying concept of streaming games is relying on Google for anything.
Why would they mention it? (Score:2)
all via the internet at a 4K resolution. One major problem with Stadia, which Google didn't mention in its presentation, is that it will require a ton of bandwidth, testing the limits of data caps that most U.S. internet service providers have.
Well, it's 4k resolution over the internet. Of course it's going to use a ton of bandwidth. Do they need to point that out for stupid people?
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Yes, they do in fact need to point that out for stupid people, lol.
But on the other hand, if i were using this service, I wouldn't be streaming 4k games as I don't have a 4k tv or computer monitor. I would imagine streaming 1080 stuff works quite nicely and will be a lot closer to average usage cases.
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when i click the netflix bookmark, i can watch tv shows and movies. i like the Minions one.
what is bandwidth
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If google is smart (Score:2)
They'll team up with spacex and offer this service with starlink as it rolls out. Hell, throw some data centers in orbit and cooling is cheap... And LEO isn't too bad for radiation toasting the CPU/GPUs.
People will freak out if they do (Score:2)
What's unknown is whether or not Google will work with ISPs to help alleviate this concern.
Cue the chorus:
"That violates Net Neutrality!!! EVIL!! EVIL!!! Burn the blasphemer! BURN BURN BURN!!!!"
So... How can Google "work with ISPs to help alleviate this (bandwidth) concern" without getting people all hot and bothered about "net neutrality"?
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Co-location
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Whoops. I guess you can play that MMO with... the people in your town.
4k60 dumb terminals (Score:2)
The resolution is one hell of a twist in what otherwise is a solid round trip. Desktop revolution? Pffffft.
backwards (Score:2)
NEVER! (Score:2)
Once you have a 38-inch 3840x1600 monitor (or comparable) at home for gaming, there's no way in hell you'd EVER want to endure trying to play your games scaled down to your phone's minuscule display or even a Web browser on a less impressive monitor at your parents' house. Maybe you can manage it at work if you're a very lucky tech guy or stock trader....
Streaming Studies (Score:1)
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Google demonstrated the service running on devices including low end Chromebooks. Any PC capable of generating 4k60 content locally is going to have vastly higher power requirements, even when not doing intensive work, so even if Google's servers were more energy inefficient than a home r
Not for me... (Score:1)
Even though I have a connection more than capable of handling the streaming there's no way I'd ever want to stream my games.
Lag aside (and it's inevitable there will be some, simply due to the physics), the lacklustre hardware they're using to render hardly fills me with excitement - heck, even my laptop is faster than their hardware (I use a Clevo desktop replacement, on the basis that if I'm going to be gaming outside of home, it'll be at a friend's place or a hotel, so will have a desk and power).
Still,
It's Alphabet. My bet is ... (Score:1)
At best. Lots of press, several levels of various presentations, demos, and blurbs at conferences. Then rollout. Whee!
Then nada. It will be too late, not consistent between the wildly different platforms. Eventually their gaming voice assistant will start bad mouthing the mediocre player stats and piss off the seventeen remaining players.
For all their noise, they really don't have the staying power for anything besides search.
Smart marketing (Score:2)
There are some technical difficulties with this, but I think it could do well if Google is smart with their marketing.
The biggest hurdle will be getting people to sign up for it. I can't see people paying a subscription fee to stream from the cloud on top of buying games to play on the cloud as well. Theoretically it could be a better investment for say a parent than just buying a game console, but I think most people will be short sighted. Lets say Google prices the sub at $10/month. Most game consoles rel
Then again... (Score:2)
...while it may support it, how many people NEED their game delivered at 4k? Seriously?
And for those who claim to "need" it, if you offered them a choice of every game they want whenever they want, at $20/month, but capped at 1920x1280, vs buy a while console for what,, maybe $500, buy ONE game (now about $100, really) and play only that game at 4k, I'm pretty sure I can predict which of those at least 75% of the gaming population will choose.
How exactly they will achieve this is still unclea (Score:2)
ever heard of compression?!? You can compress a 4K60 down to 10Mbps if you want, it would be ugly, but you can, and in real-time too for the compression, even 1ms per frame. Decompression time on your PC depends on your GPU (or even CPU)
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Pied Piper's inside-out compression?
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There's a documentary on it's development on HBO, it's fascinating!
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Compression invokes considerable lag. Are you ok with 250ms - many seconds of control lag in your FPS games?
A service for casual gaming (Score:1)
Maybe they do (Score:2)
Your average consumer likely isn't rocking a 100Mbps+ connection
I would bet the majority of Stadia customers will have 100Mb+ connections in the US. People get hung up on average connection speeds in the US but some of that is people choosing lower speeds than the maximum available and most of these customers will be kids in relatively urban areas where DOCSIS 3.1 and fiber are routinely available. 300-500Mb/s cable modems are pretty normal these days, even in third tier cities. I used to live in a city of 50k people and the local cable provider offered 300Mb/s for $ [cox.com]
Thank you Captain Obvious! (Score:2)
Who knew that live-streaming 4K video required an unusually high bandwidth connection?
No big deal (Score:2)
The ability to stream 4K video to those few users that own 4K devices will likely use about as much bandwidth as 4K television, but then again who has a 4K device and would prefer to stream games rather than play them on local hardware? (Are their target customers those folks with 4K devices and no $500 game box?)
This is GREAT for data caps (Score:2)
My cell and home ISP data caps are much higher than they were just a few years ago, and a big reason for that is the rise of online video (thank you, Netflix!).
If you hate the idea of data caps, then you should welcome stuff like Stadia that drastically drives up data usage by average joes. Caps don't get raised/eliminated due to usage by a few outlier power users, they get raised when the more typical user's consumption goes up.
This will be GREAT for highlighting data caps (Score:2)
Streaming does work for some players (Score:2)
I'm in the Nvidia GeForce NOW [nvidia.com] beta, which is a similar service. The games run on their servers and the display is streamed back to you. I must say that it works much, much better than I ever expected. I'm in a fairly rural area [goo.gl] but I have a decent connection at about 110 Mbps down, 8 Mbps up. It's usually quite playable, even over wifi. It does chew through a lot of bandwidth and latency can be an issue. The biggest caveat is that I like single player turn-based games. Even when I play real-time first
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Ping would be as is.
The data set to set up the game and what is seen in every game would change.
A 1-100 gig load up of graphics per game to look at so every game is different?
Every part of the networked game would be much better visual quality every game.
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This is about the data set size sent to a user in real time. Can the ISP allow so much data to flow every game?
Can the series of tubes that is the "internet" all around the USA allow for so much data to flow down to new games in real time?
Will a much faster, wider series of tubes be needed with unlimited data?
How much data is needed at what download speed per new game hour?
A 100/??? connection? How much data per hour?
A 1000/???? connection?
How much data
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Posting as AC as I modded some comments.
If you are not a "huge data user" but pass the 1TB cap...
You ARE a huge data user!!
DethLok
Re: (Score:2)
Not if the game is being run on a server to which you're connected and you're sending input data to the server and receiving rendered game footage in return.
Then you're streaming the graphics and sound.
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that you can only ever play the game through this service and do not obtain a permanent standalone version for your own machine, 'leasing' is the closest term we have.