Some Nobody
Junior Member
Gotta have electricity, so toss that in. And an Internet bill to play online. Gotta add that too! Then you gotta have a house for all this, so toss in the rent as well!
Total cost of buying FIFA: $2000.
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EA exec: infrastructure barrier for cloud gaming shrinking "very rapidly"
- Thread starter chadskin
- Start date
Gotta have electricity, so toss that in. And an Internet bill to play online. Gotta add that too! Then you gotta have a house for all this, so toss in the rent as well!
Total cost of buying FIFA: $2000.
daninthemix
Member
Well of course someone like a "VP of investor relations" doesn't give an everloving shit about longevity, preservation, games as art, or allowing customers to continue accessing the product they've paid for - all he cares about is his personal bottom line until he can move on or retire.
QuantumSquid
Member
But what IS cloud gaming?
Broke NDA, did we?
You'll be hearing from EA's council shortly.
*tips hat, grabs onto zipline and vanishes into the night*
Oh indeed, and I just do without Starz or HBO.
Dirk Benedict
Gold Member
Would people get brainwashed enough to even want to move on to a model where they are at the mercy of a data connection? What if they(EA) are hacked? bad weather that interrupts services? ISP problems on YOUR end? So much shit between you and the game with that model that I don't find it feasible, unless people really clamor for it and data caps go away on top of that with the proverbial cherry on top; an overall bandwidth increase for the entire U.S.
This is a fantasy of greed and if people are generally stupid enough to support this out of "convenience" and If I am still alive when such a time comes, then that is a sure sign for me to quit gaming. Would I? Well, EA isn't every publisher, so that would remain to be seen.
The nerve of this exec, though. He envisions the money in his account, already, before any of this has even begun, by his tone.
This is a fantasy of greed and if people are generally stupid enough to support this out of "convenience" and If I am still alive when such a time comes, then that is a sure sign for me to quit gaming. Would I? Well, EA isn't every publisher, so that would remain to be seen.
The nerve of this exec, though. He envisions the money in his account, already, before any of this has even begun, by his tone.
Yep. As always, MS was too early to the party, leaves, and everyone is already dancing when they come back. This will be a thing.
Mithos
Member
You'd be surprised.
Dirk Benedict
Gold Member
Microsoft's 180's on the Xbox One original plan gives me a small injection of faith.
But, yeah. Never underestimate stupidity in this day and age.
It was too early then, but the concept is inevitable.
Xion_Stellar
People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like
Nope.gif
The moment the industry moves to a digital only/streaming future than I'm done with modern gaming and I will stick to retro gaming
The moment the industry moves to a digital only/streaming future than I'm done with modern gaming and I will stick to retro gaming
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
I don't want to have to subscribe to like 6 different publisher owned streaming platforms.
hikarutilmitt
Member
Thanks for the lack of context!
I was only responding to his statement about the streaming vs physical on movies and music compared to how it would be (and, at least right now, is) since streaming services don't have the same quality as the actual, physical media running (in the case of music and movies). PSNow was a step in the right direction for things as it actually works perfectly fine for some games, but others suffer greatly and having the option of doing both is a perfectly reasonable solution and outcome compared to the scorched earth everyone in this thread is taking it to be.
I have Netflix/Hulu/Amazon, can and do stream in 4k, but I also buy 4k discs for stuff I want that way because, frankly, none of those services is still meeting the quality of the disc. The video bitrate simply isn't there and most movies on the services don't offer lossless audio. I buy CDs for music for the same reason: streams, hell even digital purchases, are compressed and don't sound as good. Even if all I do is rip the disc to my NAS as a FLAC container, it's still better quality than what I get everywhere else not offering FLAC downloads.
Mithos
Member
The reason why I don't have/will have tv/movie streaming services, I want 100% available on the one and same service.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
At least Microsoft seems to have a nice blend of both.
Yeah u still pay a sub, but at least you get to download and play the game locally. Fuck streaming.
Yeah u still pay a sub, but at least you get to download and play the game locally. Fuck streaming.
Same. This is only bad for us and I won't take part in it.
Melchiah
Member
Same here. I'm also not fond of the idea of gaming going Netflix route, and having to pay monthly fees for several publishers' services to play what I like. Not to mention, being unable to play anything when the connection is down. If anything, I would most likely just stick with one service, and that's definitely not EA's.
primasaurus
Member
That ivory tower
GenericUser
Member
The main barrier imo is the base ping you'll always have. I have a base ping of 13ms to ISP. That alone is too much for fast games.
If he refers to bandwidth, I think he could be right. But bandwidth is not everything.
If he refers to bandwidth, I think he could be right. But bandwidth is not everything.
This is of course, besides the other disadvantages, the main reason to me why PSNow will fail in the end.
Sentenza
Member
Input lag. Input lag everywhere.
Hoho for breakfast
Member
Eventually this is the future whether we like it or not. With these shit ISPs we currently have in the U.S. It ain't happening. I'm sure they'll have some extremely generous gaming packages you can pay out the ass for though at some point. You see if you pay them more it magically unclogs all the intertubes that get oh so congested.
Other than that there's lag/ping/latency/servers or whatever it's called that has to be worked on. I dunno how people are going to game competitively with the cloud either.
But yeah we'll get there someday.
Other than that there's lag/ping/latency/servers or whatever it's called that has to be worked on. I dunno how people are going to game competitively with the cloud either.
But yeah we'll get there someday.
Randomizer123454444
Member
Barrier to cloud gaming has never been the ownership vs access model. We have never owned software and probably never will, we only ever bought licenses to use.
Problem is internet infrastructure. Throttling and data caps need both need to be removed before cloud gaming becomes possible.
--edit
Most likely next step towards cloud gaming will be something like this: you pre-load partial game data to your device before real gameplay starts. Essentially loading screens will be replaced with downloading screens.
Problem is internet infrastructure. Throttling and data caps need both need to be removed before cloud gaming becomes possible.
--edit
Most likely next step towards cloud gaming will be something like this: you pre-load partial game data to your device before real gameplay starts. Essentially loading screens will be replaced with downloading screens.
Sure in 50-80 years from now.
Earthpainting
Member
The problem with such systems is going to be the same as the movies and TV show distributors'. I will not have multiple subscriptions running at the same time. I'm going to pick and choose and I'm not going to be a reliable customer. For distributors whose content I only very rarely dabble in, and EA certainly fits this bill for me, I'm going to have to cut off entirely.
Jezbollah
Member
You can bet this is the end game that EA had when introducing EA Access.
Get away from physically distributed games, give MS a big cut from that saving, everyone's happy there.
Except for Sony who when presented with this proposal probably said "yeahnah, we've got PS Now for that"
Get away from physically distributed games, give MS a big cut from that saving, everyone's happy there.
Except for Sony who when presented with this proposal probably said "yeahnah, we've got PS Now for that"
Some people would line up to hand over their testicles, if you asked them.
As for 'cloud gaming', it's a corporate dream, obviously, but I'm sure they have a lot of research data to back it up. The future is grim and dark.
Alx
Member
As a matter of fact they said in 2013 that the infrastructure wasn't ready for game streaming yet, but that it was enough for cloud processing. (of course that opinion may have been influenced by Sony's push for PSNow and their own push for Azure)
People got "brainwashed" enough to use Netflix as their main platform for movie consumption, so yes ?
Other than latency being a huge barrier it's the cost of hardware per user.
Look how much gaming for a single user is in the public domain, console or PC.
Yes, infrastructure costs are going to be massively discounted compared to your average consumer but they're in it to make money which is why it hasn't properly worked yet, running a game and providing the bandwidth to a single person takes quite a bit of power and if you want to keep up the standard of today's fidelity; a shit load more.
Look how much gaming for a single user is in the public domain, console or PC.
Yes, infrastructure costs are going to be massively discounted compared to your average consumer but they're in it to make money which is why it hasn't properly worked yet, running a game and providing the bandwidth to a single person takes quite a bit of power and if you want to keep up the standard of today's fidelity; a shit load more.
Randomizer123454444
Member
I wouldn't say so. People go to incredible lengths just to feel good. This is esp. true with gamers who are notoriously picky and loud when it comes to grievances. No amount of corporate PR can get people over the input lag that will occur when cloud gaming, if cloud gaming is attempted with current internet infrastructure.
Only way for cloud gaming to work is that you get the core infrastructure good enough that there is no noticeable gameplay difference. That is the basic requirement. Once that is done, you get to release your Killer App that will attract people to that platform.
Brerlappin
Member
I wish companies would STFU about game streaming. It will never happen until someone invents a way to transmit data instentaneously without any kind of lag or dropped packets. I mean, it has been tried, like onlive, and we all know how that went. And since onlive, were all still using the same broadband infrastructure more or less. Were still using IP based connections, there is no radical overhaul of the inherent structure of how we access the internet or transfer data electronically that could mean streaming a fucking 1080p game isnt going to incur SOME input lag, or have image quality issues. Whether from codec issues or just the fact that a streaming image isnt going to look as good as a native resolution on your monitor/TV, streamign will always look worse than just playing a game normally, and give you a substantially inferior experience to you having it installed on a box in front of you
Im fed up of this poor excuse.
Lets get his straight, its not EA who have put that data cap on your ISP, Im sure they along with lots of other companies would love for you not to have a terrible ISP.
This is not the same problem elsewhere in the world, and US consumers have only made it worse for themselves by putting trump in place.
People need to stop being so closed minds about what cloud gaming is, if is not purely streaming games.
Its almost as if people havent equated that when tech companies say cloud, they are just trying to not use the somewhat fuddy duddy phrase internet
What do you mean by too early? PSNow already exists and before that there was Gaikai. IT wasn't new then, and it wasn't new now. It just never took off.
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
As game development/marketing budgets continue their unstoppable march upwards, large publishers of AAA games will have to figure out how to expand and develop sales of their products in emerging markets (e.g. China, ME, Asia).
Sure they're all chomping at the bit to increase their monetization of existing markets today, through GaaS and micro-transactions, but there's an inherent limit to this that will only become more restrictive as time goes on and the rise in average salaries vs. inflation continues to crater in the all the largest gaming markets.
So if emerging markets—where physical boxed products are more important—will become more important over time, then moving to a cloud gaming model will only limit the reach of publishers in these ever increasingly important markets.
Likewise, cloud streaming models for entertainment media almost certainly come at the expensive of individual media product diversity; i.e. you're merely funneling more of the revenue towards an increasingly smaller and smaller pool of content creators. If such a model was to become the norm for gaming, it would potential lead to the complete end of smaller more niche games and game genres being developed.
All this is not even to mention that cloud gaming has been tried twice, and twice it has been almost universally rejected by consumers. I don't personally consider "infrastructural" problems to be the primary reason for this... but that's ok, EA, you go chase the cloud, as I'm not all that sure we'll really care if you run yourself out of business doing it.
Sure they're all chomping at the bit to increase their monetization of existing markets today, through GaaS and micro-transactions, but there's an inherent limit to this that will only become more restrictive as time goes on and the rise in average salaries vs. inflation continues to crater in the all the largest gaming markets.
So if emerging markets—where physical boxed products are more important—will become more important over time, then moving to a cloud gaming model will only limit the reach of publishers in these ever increasingly important markets.
Likewise, cloud streaming models for entertainment media almost certainly come at the expensive of individual media product diversity; i.e. you're merely funneling more of the revenue towards an increasingly smaller and smaller pool of content creators. If such a model was to become the norm for gaming, it would potential lead to the complete end of smaller more niche games and game genres being developed.
All this is not even to mention that cloud gaming has been tried twice, and twice it has been almost universally rejected by consumers. I don't personally consider "infrastructural" problems to be the primary reason for this... but that's ok, EA, you go chase the cloud, as I'm not all that sure we'll really care if you run yourself out of business doing it.
PSNow, will not fail if they get the price of the streaming correctly. There is nothing wrong with game streaming as a complimentary service, but it is not likely to reach the point where it is even close to majority of gaming of a console level or higher.
Even if he means bandwidth, he is incorrect. Most of U.S even in 5 years will not have the internet infrastructure/bandwidth speeds to make use of streaming games.
Latency would be the result of the physic limitation here and would make competing with other players even more unfair than it already is.
This thread and this guy is talking about the possibility of switching gaming to a service rather than owning the medium through online streaming. He wasn't talking about other things that can be done with cloud gaming.
The guy you quoted isn't excusing anything, he is stating the reality of the world when it comes to internet access right now. Music and video streaming is no where near the same as gaming. Like I said to the other guy, it can be used as a complimentary service, but they shouldn't try reaching too far because technology isn't there and won't be there for even the 5 years he predicted and even then there is physic limitation that would make gaming even more unbearable.
And actually this IS a problem for most of the world, don't go thinking western parts of Europe and Eastern Asia is all of the world. Most of the world does not have the bandwidth to support it.
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