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The Tiny Console Killers Taking On the PS4 and Xbox 720

Posted by Soulskill on from the neverending-console-generation dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As the next generation of consoles looms, we've seen a growing trend towards low price, compact alternatives such as the Ouya and GameStick, many of which run on the Android mobile platform. But this article on the trend raises a very good point: through the use of cloud computing and game streaming technology, it's entirely possible these machines will be able to keep pace with the powerhouse technology inside the Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox 720, and perhaps even overtake them. After all, if these little boxes can simply stream from powerful servers, how can the stalwarts of gaming keep up?"

20 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. how can the stalwarts of gaming keep up? by Bananatree3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Rural areas. Dialup and satellite internet suck in this application. 3G? Unless one has a large data cap or uses their console infrequently.

    1. Re:how can the stalwarts of gaming keep up? by Pseudonym · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Rural areas. Dialup and satellite internet suck in this application.

      You already need decent broadband on current consoles for some DRM-laden games.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    2. Re:how can the stalwarts of gaming keep up? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      And don't forget Blizzard's innovative Massively Singleplayer Online RPG experience in the latest iteration of the Diablo franchise...

  2. simply stream from powerful servers by Osgeld · · Score: 4, Insightful

    yea you know what, my shitty internet has trouble streaming from youtube sometimes

    1. Re:simply stream from powerful servers by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      They don't want you to know this; but the various 'cloud gaming' startups are actually part of an attempt to uncover enough precogs to set up a practical precrime unit.

      With latency what it is, only limited precognition allows the player to perform as well as they would locally. With online leaderboards, it becomes a relatively simple matter to screen for players who play more effectively than the limitations of the game would ordinarily allow.

  3. They will fail because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most people don't have fast enough internet to stream high quality without lag and a lot of people have data caps. If you can't even stream a Netflix movie without it buffering all the time or using up your data how are you supposed to game for hours on end?

    1. Re:They will fail because by skids · · Score: 5, Funny

      How can you say this!? It's Cloud! And Streaming! I bet they've even got plans for BYOD, VirtualSomething YetAnotherSomethingOverIP and CrowdSourcing.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
    2. Re:They will fail because by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 4, Funny

      And it's social! Like AIDS!

  4. latency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We've talked about this a thousand times. After your normal input lag gets sent to a server, the video gets rendered and sent back, your latency is so bad that twitchy games are unplayable. I'm sure it would work fine for slow-paced games, but then... what do you need the server for?

    1. Re:latency by TheLink · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The sad thing about latency is the networking bunch may do their jobs fairly well but the input/output hardware and software people often don't or can't.

      So each router hop on the internet might only take 1ms or less whereas a mouse button click or keyboard key press might take 16 milliseconds (debouncing etc) and a crap TV might take another 16-50 milliseconds or even more.

      Of course if you're unlucky to be an ocean or two away from the servers your ping goes up by 200 milliseconds or more. But if you're not, don't be surprised how little latency might be added by the network and server.

      For instance my ping to www.google.com is coming back within 5 milliseconds.

      But if the game server and client bunch leave Nagling on that often adds another semi-random 200+ milliseconds. I personally think Nagling belongs in the past and no longer should be enabled by default - causes more problems than it solves. It is a kludge that does something at the network layer that should more properly be done at the application layer.

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    2. Re:latency by Iceykitsune · · Score: 4, Insightful

      i seem to have beaten borderlands just fine over onlive.

      --
      GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
    3. Re:latency by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      You need to add data transmission time to the network latency. You need to wait for an entire screen to be transferred before it can be displayed. If it's compressed, there's latency in the compression too. That's why VOIP codecs sacrifice quality for latency, waiting for 1152 samples before encoding an MP3 frame takes too long.

    4. Re:latency by StarWreck · · Score: 5, Informative

      1ms?!? What fantasy world are you living in? 1ms is what you'll get between 2 computers on your own home LAN. You're not going to get as good as 1ms from your own ISP.

      --
      ... and in the DRM, bind them.
  5. Streamed Games are Awful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bandwidth use, control lag etc.

    A 6 year old kid can notice the lag in Lego Batman when used on a Smart TV not in Game mode and be irritated by it.

    Even under the best conditions the lag by the 'games streamed entirely from servers' is worse.

    I'd accept PS1 era graphics and tight controls over 'real-life' quality streamed graphics and horrible lag.

  6. I don't understand by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The console-killer always has been the good old PC. A reasonably specced-out PC with a mid-range graphics card is far, far better than any console. But nobody listens to me. Nobody loves me.

    1. Re:I don't understand by mjwx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The console-killer always has been the good old PC. A reasonably specced-out PC with a mid-range graphics card is far, far better than any console. But nobody listens to me.

      Well yes and no.

      You may not be old enough to remember but back before the Playstation and Xbox PC-pretenders turned up consoles were about casual, accessible games like Mario Kart. PC's were about in depth games, shooters like Doom and adventure games like Star Control 2. Then the PS/XB pretenders came a long and pretended they could be "hardcore" gaming machines. This was until Nintendo released the Wii and proved that consoles were about casual, accessible games like Mario Kart and made money hand over fist whilst it took the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 half a decade to achieve profitability (the PS3 still hasn't recouped it's investment yet).

      Now mobile is muscling in on the casual game and this is where the "traditional" console is doomed. Casual audiences will be attracted to the cheapness, ease of use and multiplayer capabilities of the tablet-consoles (Tabsoles, Conslets?) and "hardcore" games will come home, back to the PC.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    2. Re:I don't understand by samkass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The console-killer always has been the good old PC. A reasonably specced-out PC with a mid-range graphics card is far, far better than any console. But nobody listens to me. Nobody loves me.

      The console killer was the iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, etc. Apple sells as many iDevices each year than all the consoles that have ever been made, and has more games available in the App Store for its platform than for all consoles that have ever existed combined. They just announced their 40 billionth unique (non-upgrade, non-redownload) app sale, most of them games. Consoles and PC game rigs are both niches now.

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      E pluribus unum
  7. Wrong by BitZtream · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They won't keep up.

    Mommy may want to buy some shitty Ouya console cause its cheap, but little Jimmy won't want to play this shitty half assed games on it.

    Seriously, do you think people WANT to phone quality graphics on a 60" TV? No, they don't even want to see it on a 15" laptop.

    Anyone who thinks streamed games have chance hasn't played a game. Even for turn based games, lag that is noticeable sucks ass, and no ones internet is lag free all the time. Even if the last mile doesnt' lag, there are plenty of other hops to cause problems and introduce lag.

    Consoles, current or next gen, have no worries at all about being beat out by a Gamestick or Ouya console, local or streamed. Anyone who thinks this is utterly disconnected from reality.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  8. Worst idea ever by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So it's like the current games but with 100x more financial reason to shut down the multiplayer servers after a couple years. That sounds like a great idea! Just ask PC gamers how much they love that.

  9. Escalation by fredprado · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is one of the most stupid applications for cloud computing. Centralizing processor hungry processes. Can anyone take a guess how badly it will become as this escalates?