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

P

ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
Going to do everything in my power to work for this company. Time to fulfill my lifelong dream of working for Shinra.
 
F

FuturusX

Member
I'd like to formally protest at the formation of this new company on behalf of the future residents of Midgar Sector 7.
 
A

Azabu

Neo Member
Nirolak said:
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.
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This is the idea, yeah.
 
T

thesolidshark

Member
oxidax said:
"Cloud" Services, "Shinra".

FFVII remake confirmed.

:p
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Boke1879 said:
And they are working with AVALANCHE studios lol
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Zach-Galifianakis-Awkward-Laugh-In-Dinner-For-Schmucks.gif


Toparaman said:
Capcom to announce Umbrella Technologies.
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I fear the future where Capcom, and the prediction of so many companies following EA's lead was this predictable.
 
H

HeelPower

Member
duckroll said:
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.
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Htown said:
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.
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Thanks so much for the insight.

I understand this a little better now.Its more complex than "LOL MOBILE GAMING"
 
S

Sephiroth_GR_

Member
In other news this is their headquarters

nightt11.jpg


Hopefully this bussiness decision doesn't affect our gaming purchasing life. Streaming from the Cloud would be the dumbest idea. I expect an avalanche of enraged fans throughout the world....the future is black. Materializing this business model can only mean games as a service, no more ownership. Ancients and medievil is one way to describe those people.
We must form a Reunion of old-school and traditional gamers and show them by all means that those methods are only against the ownership of the consumer.
Holy crap!
 
X

Xenus

Member
No offense to square or whoever else that tries this but I hope the publisher initiatives fail. I don't like a future where you have to subscribe to publisher specific services to stream their games rather than one per platform or one across many platforms.
 
S

Sydle

Member
The real deal is probably a few years off, but I hope all the publishers move in this direction.

I want to play everything on just one device. I don't give a shit about the brand name on it.
 
N

Narroo

Member

Wada said that the newly established company will provide a "new ecosystem for the games industry." The AAA game industry requires huge investments, and older business models - reliance on consoles as dedicated game-playing devices - have been unable to maintain this ecosystem, he said.

You mean you want to operate via a subscription service, because that makes much more money in the long term.
 
X

Xenus

Member
Paco said:
The real deal is probably a few years off, but I hope all the publishers move in this direction.

I want to play everything on just one device. I don't give a shit about the brand name on it.
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God no. All them having streaming is good. Each publisher having their own service is terrible. It's a good deal for square enix fans and EA fans but it's a terrible deal for people who like a wide variety of publishers and genres. As you weould need to subscribe to each publishers service. The best for everyone would be a unified service not a fragmented market.
 
M

MilkBeard

Member
Wada named Hojo lead reasearcher in new Shinra Corp.

They are supposedly set to unveal their new project, rumored to be called 'Jenova,' next year.
 
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