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Dave Perry Shows Off Cloud Gaming Service "Gaikai"
jasoncart writes "Veteran gaming man Dave Perry has shown off his OnLive-rivalling, cloud gaming service called Gaikai in a new video that is drawing a lot of attention. As you can see from the video, Perry plays World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Mario Kart 64, Spore and more — all running on a bog-standard computer through the Gaikai website, itself running in a normal version of Firefox."
More details about the service are available at Perry's website. He spoke about Gaikai in an interview a few months ago, and he seems confident that this will work better than OnLive (which we've discussed in the past).
I must agree it looked to work somewhat nicely, but people are taking this cloud computing thing way too far. I want to run the stuff on my own box and not somewhere else. Aside privacy conserns, it doesn't make that much sense to run games via internet line. Theres lag issues, bandwidth issues, connectivity issues and latency issues. Sometimes the old model works better than the new 'cool' model.
So... they're using the <video> tag, and use javascript to redirect the input to the remote server?
There are some (quite important) things missing from the video:
:D ), where one would be using a subscription service to be able to play a big library.
- Why no mention of what connection he is on? Or for that matter, why no mention of where the server is located? (besides some vague "Oh, I've never been as far from a server as I am at the moment!")
- Where's the fullscreen? I can see how it would be quite hard to properly stream current screensizes (such as 1680x1050, or even 1280x1024)
Other than that, I noticed a few odd things, such as:
- When playing MarioKart 64, at the end he all of a sudden crashes into a wall, which he tells is because "he hasn't been playing the game for quite some time"; Seems quite odd, and looked more like it had to do with the actual command not properly coming through.
- Howcome he's allowed to have MK64 running on an emulator anyways? I thought it was illegal to do so (even if you have the game yourself); though I might be wrong on that.
Whereas I like the idea (but can't see myself using it in the next decades), I think the price has to be really low for people to actually use it. Though I can definitely see a use for it for some new sort of console (Phantom, anyone?
Still, I always wondered how this would scale if it got really popular: I can't imagine a computer being able to stream multiple high-graphics game for multiple clients.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
One thing I can think of is completely cross-platform gaming...
PageTurner Reader: open-source e-reader for Android with cloudsync. http://pageturner-reader.org
I'm certainly not signing up for anything that absolutely requires an active high bandwidth connection to play single player offline games until companies like Comcast have been brought to heel.
They're already complaining about those pesky high-bandwidth users, they aren't upgrading their infrastructure, and they're charging fees for just about anything they can think of. Now wait until their metered plan really takes off, and tell me about gaming in the cloud. Any savings from hardware cost with this setup will be eaten by increasing ISP charges.
Besides, really, aren't we reaching the point where mandatory PC upgrades for games are much farther apart, really mitigating that factor?
The point is that you don't have to spend lots of money on expensive hardware, a simple web browser with internet connectivity (over a fat pipe!) is all it takes. This saves you large amounts of cash.
It also opens up the possibility of allowing your games and applications to stay with you wherever you go. You could bring up a GaiKai iPhone app and play WoW during lunch or on the train or wherever. Once you get home you can fire it up on your big screen TV via the media center's web browser.
For the software companies this gives them a great opportunity to make even more money by moving to a subscription service. No longer do you pay once for Photoshop, now you pay maybe $5 or $10 a month to use it. To you it seems cheaper, to Adobe they see an unending stream of money that doesn't stop a month after release of a new product.
For the advertisers they have a new stream to inject themselves into. That's not any ordinary version of Photoshop, it's one that's been sponsored by Brand X and will have Brand X logos and styling and maybe even Brand X brushes and filters. Think of all the new possibilities to get eye time!
Bandwidth concerns? Bah. Worst-case you bulk up the hardware on the server and do some realtime encoding to H.264. The video quality might not be great, but you can still use all your apps regardless of available resources.
Privacy is, of course, the big concern. No longer do I worry about my login and password being hijacked between my machine and Blizzard, I now have to worry about the connection between my computer and "the cloud" as well as whatever hijinx there may be going in "the cloud".
And where, exactly, are these images I create in Photoshop being stored? Locally on my computer? That means "the cloud" and read/write to my computer. Do you really want that? But wait, "the cloud" has its own storage space and for a few extra dollars a month you can store all your goods there. Now you don't have to carry a flash drive around with you all the time. You just travel to your destination, connect to "the cloud", and there are your files! Of course "the cloud" company will need some sort of executive license agreement with provisions for responsibility and liability if data is lost or stolen. For that "the cloud" company can charge lots more dollars and stick the VPs on their own "executive cloud".
For the REALLY wealthy there will be a "personal cloud" in the form of a single server that is entirely at your disposal. With routine backups and lots of A/V and firewalls to keep you protected.
But for the elite wealthy, that 1% of 1%, there will be the home cloud. A machine that will sit on your desktop and do all of this without ever going out over the internet!
The future is amazin.
No one says you can't still run things locally if you want to. Why do people see something that isn't a good fit for them, and immediately think it's an either/or thing? This whole system is for people who want to play on the go, who don't like to install stuff, who like the convenience, or who are new to a game and want to try it out. It is an expansion to the modern gaming experience, not a replacement, and it's a very positive thing.
Uh, no. X11 apps forwarded over LAN is 99.9% indistinguishable from local (ie, very fast, the other 0.1% is the <@otherhost> in the titlebar).
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
No one says you can't still run things locally if you want to. Why do people see something that isn't a good fit for them, and immediately think it's an either/or thing?
Because the publisher of a specific game might choose to make it an either/or thing by releasing it exclusively on one of these services.
This whole system is for people who want to play on the go
On the go? In that case, let me know when EVDO or HSPA bandwidth can keep up with this service, both per second and per month.
or who are new to a game and want to try it out.
I imagine that playing a twitch game in such a laggy environment as a "rental" will leave the player with a poor impression of its control feel.
While some claim that bandwidth isn't up to snuff, and maintaining enough servers to support a massive number of gamers is not feasible, etc, etc, this will all change in a short amount of time. This type of service is on the cusp of being a reality, and it will change computing forever. If a video game can be supported through a remote terminal, then ANY application could be supported. Eventually more and more apps will be available only on the cloud, and hardware costs will go down, then you'll find that 20 years later only dumb terminals exist in the hands of the average consumer. As wireless connectivity matures even phones will all just be dumb terminals. You never need to upgrade your phone, unless you want a bigger screen or different input method. The applications you RENT will be unpiratable, because there is no publicly available platform to run them on, and you can use the same app across your desktop and phone, but with modified interfaces as the device would report it's capabilities to the cloud, and the cloud would change the interface appropriately.
How does linux fit into all of this? Will there be a new ideological movement in the future to keep processing power in the hands of consumers? How do you install linux on a dumb terminal?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I don't think lag is the problem per-se. You're already exposed to it when playing games in multiplayer and it is not the end of the world.
Just think of the required bandwidth though. I play my games in 1900x1200, so using 30fps and 3 bytes per pixel (granted an arbitrary assumption) comes out to 205,200,000 bytes/second. I don't know about you guys, but that is slightly faster than my current internet connection. You could use video compression, but the requirements for that both for the cloud and for your local computer will crush the benefits.
If they release it exclusively, then choose another game that plays locally.
Do you have some tips on how I can convince a family member who has specified a specific title on a wish list to want a different game instead? If one really wants to play Halo 3, for instance, Metroid Prime 3 isn't a close enough substitute.
ultimately it boils down to "640k should be enough for anybody" - stuff will only get faster
Not necessarily. If I'm in Chicago, and their servers are in Virginia and California, the speed of light establishes a lower bound on the latency between a keypress and its reflection on the client.
pipes bigger, etc. These are early days.
The reality of the non-market for Internet access in the United States is that "early days" will last significantly longer than if there were a market.
Except they won't actually be able to do that at all. Workplaces will block these services. Libraries will block these services. And if you can afford to regularly stream HD video to a mobile device, you can probably afford a Playstation.
Except this isn't "try before you buy". It's "pay per play". Remember arcades? Well, this won't be "insert coin", it'll be "insert credit card". And you bet your life they'll take away the "buy" option as soon as they can.