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GaiKai Beta To Start In Europe "Later This Month"
Alison Beasley sends word that GaiKai, the cloud gaming service being developed by games industry vet Dave Perry, is about to begin beta testing in Europe. (Sign-up page.) GaiKai is a competitor to OnLive, which started beta tests of its own recently. IGN got a chance to try out GaiKai for themselves, and they've posted a video showing how it performed. From Perry's announcement:
"Our closed beta has two goals. #1 is to bring our servers to their knees so we can choose the final configuration before we start ordering large quantities of them. (We think we have it worked out, but you can be certain our staff will be swapping cards and testing different processors as each day goes by.) Goal #2 is to test older computers. We've had lots of emails from people describing their computers and 99% of them have ample performance. Remember you don't even need a 3D card to see a 3D game run on our service. I know this is strangely counter to what people expect, but we actually want to get plenty of basic office-grade XP machines testing so we can make sure we can reach the widest audience possible. ... After we choose the hardware configuration in Europe, our next phase will be our USA Nationwide Network Test, that will be using 8 Tier-1 Data Centers, getting hammered by Closed Beta testers. During that process, [we] will be identifying the other data centers we need to include to blanket the USA in a low latency array. Phase 2 of that is Europe, in exactly the same test."
I assume this is going to be a subscirption type service? I'd love this if you could also use as a pay-as-you-go type of thing. I'm the sort of gamer who doesn't actually finish many games and only plays very infrequently.
Last time I played cloud games, I got in trouble...
(How was I to know that fog machines set off fire alarms?!) :o
Seriously though... this has potential :)
Two comments on this:
1. Gaikai is going for a model where their servers are widely deployed at the "edge" of the Internet. That means negotiating with ISPs to locate servers near the modems. Part of that deal will involve having sufficient bandwidth for those servers and those protocols.
2. This kind of service is going to build customer demand for stable, fast, low latency connections. Presumably market forces will cause ISPs to provide.
There, fixed that for you ;) As a UK broadband customer (albeit one who doesn't need much bandwidth), I can't see the ISPs offering the kind of levels that people expect in the US and other nations for a hell of a long time yet.
Someone commented on digital downloads recently that it was okay because 4GB was only a "small amount" of your average 30GB+ monthly cap. 30GB+? You're probably talking £30+ per month in the UK on top of your £12 per month phone line charge and some contorted "acceptable use policy", not the entry level £10-£15 that most people use.
Welcome to the future.
Advantages of this technology
1. No more console wars. The consoles that have already been released are more than adequate to do the job of decoding the video for a game service like this. This means
a. Publishers get virtually bulletproof DRM by releasing games for a service like this, even better than they have with consoles. And it's not "DRM" like we hate on slashdot - they simply don't give you a copy of the game at all.
b. Developers only have to worry about ONE platform again - the multicore PC with a high end graphics card and lots and lots of RAM (that's what the GaiKai data centers will be stocked with). Much easier to develop for than a console - if you run into resource limitations, you can just tell GaiKai that your game needs higher end hardware.
c. No more OS and hardware conflicts that caused problems with PC games in the past. GaiKai can give you a copy of the OS image they put on their machines, and the exact part numbers they put into their hardware.
d. No more problems with users failing to buy an adequate dedicated graphics card, or to configure their PC correctly.
2. Groundbreaking new games are possible. Since GaiKai can guarantee that your game will run on a machine of defined specifications, you could really push the graphics.
3. Games can be sold by the hour of play. You could pay about $.50-$1 an hour and hop from game to game, playing whatever catches your interest. Each publisher would receive a share of the revenue proportional to the exact time you spent playing their game. Publishers would probably make more money overall, and gamers would get to enjoy ALL the games, not just AAA titles.
Disadvantages
1. Latency is unavoidable, and it's going to be a little more than some games on some systems today. In the video, I saw them playing Mario cart, and the gamer wasn't crashing into buildings - so the latency is probably not too bad.
2. A high bandwidth internet connection with guaranteed maximum latency is needed to make this service work. There needs to be quality of service routing by the ISPs to make sure that game packets aren't delayed. For the moment, not everyone has access to connections that fast. I live in a small town, but I have 8 mbps cable which is enough.
3. Compression artifacts mean that even in 5 years when people have 20 mbps connections to the service, the games won't be as sharp as the old days.
4. The Biggest Problem is that you're dependent on centralized services to enjoy a video game. (your ISP AND the service) When the service goes down you can't do anything at all. Even once they iron the bugs out, the annual downtime will probably be more than you've experienced with owning the device the games are played on.
Overall, I think the advantages overwhelmingly outweigh the disadvantages. I think consoles with their crazy hardware architectures are going to die away, relegated to the dustbins of history. In the future, all games will be PC compatible. They'll still release local copies of some games for hardcore gamers to run on their PCs, especially of multiplayer only CD key requiring games (like first person shooters)
How the bloody hell is this meant to work. I have seen the videos but I still cannot believe it. How can they make it work across the Internet where we cannot even make it work at home on a Gbit LAN. Anybody have an idea of how all of this works? Special graphics driver?
OnLive has said that for HD you need 5Mb/s -- but that it *peaks* at that level. That is, most of the time it's using much less.
So, you'll get a choppy experience if your ISP can't deliver 5Mb/s when you need it. But 1 minute's play won't use anywhere near 5*60Mb = 300Mb of your download allowance.
Here in Belgium all major ISPs have monthly download limits. Mine is at 30gb. That means I'll be able to play a few hours before I reach my limit.
Streaming videos or games will not work as long as these caps are there. And seeing how my ISP also delivers us video on demand (which doesn't count towards my download limit) I really can't see them eager to change this.
This and OnLive are only about applying the cloud computing buzzword to gaming, so they can cash in the venture capital before anyone realizes they don't actually work.
It's remote gaming, so presumably the controllers are hosted in a datacenter somewhere. You are required to press the buttons using the power of your mind.
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What the hell are you talking about?
You clearly haven't used Be broadband. No limits. May have a FUP, but mostly aimed at heavy users. 24 Mbit (ADSL, so YMMV) for around 19 quid a month. Get a static IP for an extra pound.
The UK is ahead of the US in terms of broadband.
Unless you typed that post by moving a cursor over an on-screen keyboard and hitting an action button to select each letter, I suggest you get the fuck out of here and back to your console.
Come on, the video shows them playing Mario Kart 64. You want an analogue stick to play that.