Is cloud gaming viable? Myth vs reality

CiiNOW's Chris Donahue, a 25-year game industry veterans, argues that it is viable in the opinion piece for GamesBeat.

[LOGICWINS]

I don't really understand who this is meant for. People with slow internet connections obviously can't take advantage of this. On the other hand, people with fast internet connections such as myself don't need to use cloud since every download is blazing fast.

[jujubee88]

Oh, btw, I sent you a PM.

:)

[deantak]

multiple gigabyte downloads aren't exactly blazing fast. particularly if you want to get something the second it launches and there is a logjam. i suppose the cloud version could have a logjam too, but it's a different kind of data streaming happening there.

[chasegarcia]

the idea is if you have fiber speeds you can play graphic intensive games on any device. Like running Crysis on a weak laptop, hdtv, or tablet for example.

Another good reason to use is if your device does not support the game. Like using linux to play a windows game.

[LOGICWINS]

Its a nice option, but I don't see it being practical. Why would I want to play these games on my weak laptop? And if I play these games on my buttonless smartphone, won't rhe battery run out in half an hour or something?

[aquamala]

the point of cloud gaming is that you can start playing games in seconds, like watching movies in Netflix , even your "blazing fast" internet connection takes hours to download a 10GB game.

and your "weak" laptop is perfectly fine for cloud gaming, all the processing are done on the cloud, all your local machine does is send your commands (like button presses) and display data from the cloud server. the local machine doesn't need to be powerful at all, something like a Roku player will do.

[LOGICWINS]

You must have really slow Internet. I downloaded Infamous 2, a 15GB game, in 42 minutes. And I have a 500GB hardrive so I don't have to worry about running out of space.

[LOGICWINS]

Yes, I understand that the local machine I'm using doesn't need to be powerful at all...its just that I have NO true desire to play these games on buttonless tablets/smartphones. Even if Sony found a way for you to use the DS3 with these machines, why would I want to carry around a DS3 everywhere I go? Its not practical.

The only way for it to be practical is for PS3/Vita use.

Also, you will need an expensive data plan if you want to access your cloud games everywhere you go on Vita(bus, train, long car rides etc.)

And even then you'll likely have to deal with cases of lag, frame rate hiccups, and getting kicked off the server due to connection issues. The cons outweigh the pros with cloud gaming. Cloud storage is great though.

[tigertron]

@ LOGICWINS

I have really slow internet. It took me 5 hours to download Mass Effect.

Unfortunately in my town, our internet speeds average 7 Mbps. In fact, the UK has a whole has crap internet speeds. That's why I don't think cloud gaming will become a proper mainstream alternative for quite a few years, not until internet speeds improve and governments start investing in better infrastructure like fibre optic broadband.

[SybaRat]

Useful? Absolutely. Profitable? Aye, there's the rub....

[wita]

Cool article! I could sure do without so many system/game updates/downloads. It's such a pain.

[Sadie2100]

He picked the worst example possible: Trying to compare cloud gaming to updating games on the PS3. Of course the PS3 is going to offer a bad experience on that front.

[Rai]

If your a PSN PLUS member the ps3 will update any game you've recently played. True that games you haven't played in awhile won't be updated but I prefer to sit and wait for the update rather than stream a game.

There are other problems other than latency, the biggest disadvantage is that internet connections isn't always stable. We can have the fastest connection in the world but if its not stable it means nothing.

[tachy0n]

cloud gaming should wait at least until internet speeds become faster..

in the US the average internet speed is 5.something megabits/second...

[barb_wire]

How will people who have ISP bandwidth limits fair with cloud gaming?

[Hicken]

They won't. It's one of the many things cloud's proponents gloss over.

I mean, does anybody know how many people don't even taken their consoles online, or only do so when they take it to a house other than their own?

Do we know what type of issues to expect with, say, 400,000 people playing CoD from the cloud all at once?

What kind of library are people left with if, for example, their internet goes out for some reason or another?

What if the servers the cloud is hosted on go down?

Does this even make sense for people who only or primarily play single-player games?

There's already a question of ownership and owner's rights with digital games; how will cloud gaming factor into that, and vice versa?

To put it simply, the world just isn't ready for cloud-only gaming yet.

[BitbyDeath]

Should just start small, demos and movie renting would be a great start.