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Square Enix announces new cloud gaming service Shinra Technologies, led by Wada

DNAbro

Member
you can stream Agni's Philosophy? Well that is a really really odd choice. Maybe they will do something with it.
 

duckroll

Member
https://shinra.com/us/blog/establishment-of-shinra-technologies

“Ubisoft has long believed that the cloud will play an important part in gaming’s future,” said Yves Guillemot, CEO and co-founder of Ubisoft. “We are intrigued by the direction Shinra Technologies, Inc. is taking and look forward to seeing what their architecture and technologies can deliver.”

Lol. Looks like based on the site and what they're saying, DiveIn is a consumer end solution (the audience is consumers who want to play certain games and are willing to pay for a subscription), while Shinra here is a developer/publisher solution where their business is to get people who want to use this platform on board.
 
Also included in the Japanese beta are Space Sweeper, a new game developed by Kenko Nakajima, as well as Square Enix-published titles Final Fantasy 7, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Hitman Absolution and Tomb Raider. The titles available in the Shinra Technologies beta are not necessarily indicative of the company's service lineup, said Kristin DeRosa, director of marketing at Shinra.

Does Polygon not have an editor?
 

HeelPower

Member
What so attractive about cloud gaming anyway ?

I did use onlive for a good while (played two games on there actually) but i still wouldn't say its an amazing service even though its way better and cheaper than PSNow for instance.


Its really expensive ,doesn't give you the best version of the game and requires constant internet connection.

Maybe I am shortsighted ,but what could Cloud tech potentially add to games in the future ??? Other than letting you rent bad versions of games.
 

Jonnyram

Member
This reminds me of Cellius.
Probably a dead-end subsidiary specifically setup to run out the remaining days of Wada's career.
 

jblank83

Member
I want my games...

installable on my own hardware
moddable as I see fit
uninstallable and reinstallable any time I want
launchable without having to dig through someone's front end
playable offline, whenever possible
free of advertisements

"The cloud" is the "right" future for companies because it allows them to control not only the distribution of the game (piracy argument), but also because it allows them to control your viewing experience (think commercials).

I'll keep putting my money where my mouth is. Come the day the only way I can play a video game is through the cloud, I'll find some other game to play, or some other way to pass my time.
 

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
I do not endorse this service.

Our datacenters feature thousands of CPUs and GPUs working together, providing gamers access to virtually unlimited processing power.

Damn, these games are going to look like something from 5-10 years in the future!
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
This reminds me of Cellius.
Probably a dead-end subsidiary specifically setup to run out the remaining days of Wada's career.

Ah yes. I was trying to think of something to compare this to and I think you've got it exactly right.
 

Nipo

Member
trying to make ffxv level games playable on mobile for the Japanese market? I can't figure out their goal here
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Okay reading the info basically instead of just running a game and encoding it as a video service that takes input back from the user, they try to massively parallelize all the systems of a game so they can render everything more efficiently for a huge number of users on less hardware.

The idea is essentially to make cloud gaming more economical by making the workload look more like a science experiment computation that maximizes all available hardware instead of a one or two game per box type of solution where a lot of the hardware might not be utilized at any given moment.
 
Snazzy logo, if nothing else.

True.

Shinra.
Cloud.
Avalanche.

God bless. Praise Yevon.

giphy.gif
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Okay reading the info basically instead of just running a game and encoding it as a video service that takes input back from the user, they try to massively parallelize all the systems of a game so they can render everything more efficiently for a huge number of users on less hardware.

The idea is essentially to make cloud gaming more economical by making the workload look more like a science experiment computation that maximizes all available hardware instead of a one or two game per box type of solution where a lot of the hardware might not be utilized at any given moment.

Too complicated for square if HD towns are hard
 

legacyzero

Banned

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
What so attractive about cloud gaming anyway ?

I did use onlive for a good while (played two games on there actually) but i still wouldn't say its an amazing service even though its way better and cheaper than PSNow for instance.


Its really expensive ,doesn't give you the best version of the game and requires constant internet connection.

Maybe I am shortsighted ,but what could Cloud tech potentially add to games in the future ??? Other than letting you rent bad versions of games.

The only good thing about it is that it allows the end user to play games without buying expensive hardware up front.

Everything else about it is a downgrade in the long term. For any game that's sufficiently old, technology prices will have dropped to the point that buying the hardware would have been a better economic prospect than paying for a monthly service for a couple years. For any game that's played for a sufficiently long time, downloading the software is more bandwidth-efficient than streaming video for the entire playtime. Picture quality, framerate, and input latency are also considerations.

There are also issues of scale. For every person streaming a PS4-level game experience simultaneously, you need a PS4's worth of processing power running on some machine somewhere. Also, internet infrastructure in the US specifically is awful.

edit: if it's not video streaming, disregard that part of the post. If it's not, though, you're going to run into a whole other set of issues.
 

duckroll

Member
What so attractive about cloud gaming anyway ?

I did use onlive for a good while (played two games on there actually) but i still wouldn't say its an amazing service even though its way better and cheaper than PSNow for instance.


Its really expensive ,doesn't give you the best version of the game and requires constant internet connection.

Maybe I am shortsighted ,but what could Cloud tech potentially add to games in the future ??? Other than letting you rent bad versions of games.

Well I guess it depends on what you're asking really. "Cloud gaming" is a vague term which doesn't really mean a specific thing. There is a lot of confusion out there about what cloud computing actually is, and I think people don't quite understand exactly what why various companies are trying very hard to make a stake in the market.

What is the benefit of cloud technology for gaming? There are infinite benefits, but that doesn't mean there are a ton which are already being realized right now. The two biggest benefits at the moment are platform-free gaming services and more optimized online performance and services.

The former is stuff like OnLive and PS Now, where regardless of what hardware a game is developed for, it can be played on other devices supported by the service platform. This isn't a huge gamechanger as it is, because it basically targets more casual audiences who don't want to buy dedicated hardware but might want to check out games which weren't previously available. It is an interesting business strategy for expanding the reach of existing libraries though.

The latter is something which I think people can relate to much more in terms of day to day internet technology. Web hosting, social media, file sharing, etc all benefit from cloud technology. Think of stuff like Gmail, Dropbox, Cloudflare, etc. Having a data cluster able to detect and deliver the optimal performance to someone accessing stuff regardless of what and where they're accessing the service from is a huge benefit. Stuff like this can be applied to online servers, matchmaking, player data, and so on.

The next step which gaming companies are trying to tap into now is using cloud computing itself to take the load off complex calculations and lower the barrier for hardware on the consumer end. The reason why you see more and more companies trying to go after this right now is because whoever manages to really make a big impact in this field as the market leader will probably make a ton of money. It's not about creating an attractive proposition for the game consumer right now, it's more about putting the infrastructure and partnerships in place to have a strong brand awareness within the industry for technology licensing.
 
Okay reading the info basically instead of just running a game and encoding it as a video service that takes input back from the user, they try to massively parallelize all the systems of a game so they can render everything more efficiently for a huge number of users on less hardware.

The idea is essentially to make cloud gaming more economical by making the workload look more like a science experiment computation that maximizes all available hardware instead of a one or two game per box type of solution where a lot of the hardware might not be utilized at any given moment.

My head hurts but it sounds awesome.
 

Darksol

Member
I've got an idea, let's name our new venture after the monopolistic energy barons who were literally sucking the life out of the planet.

No objections? Anyone?

Snazzy logo though, I must admit.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Ironic how Wada came to his conclusion based only on the fact that their own games have been failing for years, without acknowledging their own decisions to blame.

How does a streaming service actually help anyone? People are still making AAA games regardless of the mechanism or system. He dismisses both console and PC in one go
 

Scum

Junior Member
Well I guess it depends on what you're asking really. "Cloud gaming" is a vague term which doesn't really mean a specific thing. There is a lot of confusion out there about what cloud computing actually is, and I think people don't quite understand exactly what why various companies are trying very hard to make a stake in the market.

What is the benefit of cloud technology for gaming? There are infinite benefits, but that doesn't mean there are a ton which are already being realized right now. The two biggest benefits at the moment are platform-free gaming services and more optimized online performance and services.

The former is stuff like OnLive and PS Now, where regardless of what hardware a game is developed for, it can be played on other devices supported by the service platform. This isn't a huge gamechanger as it is, because it basically targets more casual audiences who don't want to buy dedicated hardware but might want to check out games which weren't previously available. It is an interesting business strategy for expanding the reach of existing libraries though.

The latter is something which I think people can relate to much more in terms of day to day internet technology. Web hosting, social media, file sharing, etc all benefit from cloud technology. Think of stuff like Gmail, Dropbox, Cloudflare, etc. Having a data cluster able to detect and deliver the optimal performance to someone accessing stuff regardless of what and where they're accessing the service from is a huge benefit. Stuff like this can be applied to online servers, matchmaking, player data, and so on.

The next step which gaming companies are trying to tap into now is using cloud computing itself to take the load off complex calculations and lower the barrier for hardware on the consumer end. The reason why you see more and more companies trying to go after this right now is because whoever manages to really make a big impact in this field as the market leader will probably make a ton of money. It's not about creating an attractive proposition for the game consumer right now, it's more about putting the infrastructure and partnerships in place to have a strong brand awareness within the industry for technology licensing.

Quick question then, if you don't mind me asking. Wouldn't this kind of setup be quite ideal for, say, Nintendo's Virtual Console? Or have I misunderstood you completely??
 
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