Sony and Microsoft Set Rivalry Aside For Streaming Alliance (nikkei.com) 33
Sony and Microsoft, bitter rivals in the video game console wars, will team up in on-demand gaming to better compete with newcomers like Google as the industry's main battlefield looks poised to shift to the cloud, news outlet Nikkei reported Thursday. From a report: Sony President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida has signed a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on a strategic tie-up. While details have yet to be hammered out, the partnership will center on artificial intelligence and the cloud. The latter category includes plans for joint development of cloud gaming technology. While this market is expected to grow as ultrafast fifth-generation wireless gains traction, such services require much processing power on the provider's end to deliver games with high-quality graphics and minimal lag. Sony and Microsoft plan to leverage the American computing behemoth's data centers for this purpose. The two companies, along with Nintendo, long dominated the gaming landscape. But the rise of mobile gaming has brought competition from such other players as China's Tencent Holdings, which publishes the mobile version of the wildly popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG). Press release: Sony and Microsoft to explore strategic partnership.
Whoever wins, we lose. (Score:1)
It's like watching another Aliens vs. Predator movie.
Re: The enemy of my enemy... (Score:2)
Fortnite does that just fine without any streaming nonsense. Why does everything we do have to involve mega-assloads of data moving over the network?
The kids will need 5G and unlimited data for sure.
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They forgot to mention the blockchain technology underpinning it :(
I can't wait. (Score:1)
The people who brought you PlaysForSure teaming up with the people that brought you the SonyRootkit. What could possibly go wrong?
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I remember "PlaysForSure", oh yeah, good times.
I had a friend who spent hundreds of dollars on that shit and was surprised when they fucked him out of his music.
We tried to warn him, but oh well.
Translated Headline (Score:2)
Translated Headline: "Sony and Microsoft Set Rivalry Aside In Pursuit Of Mo' Money"
Leverage the data centres? (Score:2)
You mean use them?
Has there been some new development in streaming? (Score:3)
as the industry's main battlefield looks poised to shift to the cloud
Has there been some new development in game streaming that I haven't heard of? Different companies have been trying to push this for years, and it hasn't worked because it sucks. Has it stopped sucking? Has there been some kind of miraculous technical advancement that I missed?
This feels just like the VR thing: somehow, everyone involved seems to have forgotten that this is a bad idea. It's been tried before and it failed for pretty intractable reasons.
Re: Has there been some new development in streami (Score:2)
Nope. This is gonna be a disaster. Unless they keep it in the European and Asian markets, it'll be a completely unmitigated disaster.
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You are obviously a gamer. Not their target audience.
Laggy streamed games are games for non-gamers, the majority of the population. Sure they play a lot less and suck. But their money is the same color as yours.
In the end, they will find that non-gamers don't pay for games. It will be ad supported sucky games as far as the eye can see. Real gamers will continue to use a PC, consoles will die, phones will stream games worse than the ones that render locally on battery power.
European and Asian gamers a
Re: Has there been some new development in stream (Score:2)
The Euro and Asian markets are different because they have real internet. Streaming decent games is at least a theoretical possibility there. In the Americas and Australia, phone trash is as good as it can possibly get, whether MS and Sony are sincerely interested in trying or not. (I know they're not. And thank God for that, because the whole industry, even on PC, would fall into GaaS Hell otherwise.)
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Well, except that VR is not a bad idea. It's quite awesome, actually.
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Has there been some kind of miraculous technical advancement that I missed?
Now witness the destructive firepower of this fully armed and operational marketing department.
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this is going to end well (Score:2)
game companies working together, that always ends well... sony-nintendo