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The Tiny Console Killers Taking On the PS4 and Xbox 720
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?"
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?
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?
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.
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.
Rural areas. Dialup and satellite internet suck in this application.
You already need decent broadband on current consoles for some DRM-laden games.
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And don't forget Blizzard's innovative Massively Singleplayer Online RPG experience in the latest iteration of the Diablo franchise...
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.