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Report: Comcast and EA To Stream Games To TVs
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that Electronic Arts and Comcast are working on a partnership that would stream video games to consumer televisions through Comcast's cable boxes. It will start with the FIFA and Madden sports game franchises. 'Comcast and EA's aim is to make buying games as easy as ordering a pay-per-view movie, sources said. This could create a new distribution model that circumvents console and video-streaming device makers.' The report says consumers will also be able to use tablets as controllers for the games."
Sega Channel was doing this back in the 90's.
I'm genuinely curious if anyone is excited about this. This service seems like it would be of interest to no one outside of big companies wanting to cut big company deals.
Tablets as controllers? What are we, barbarians?
It's like Stalin and Hitler teaming up to deliver milk for a monthly premium instead of buying the cow.
Answer: EA and Comcast
Question: Who are two companies you should never give another bloody dime to.
this has been done by multiple companies, in various iterations, and all have failed. This will too of course.
the group of folks who are into FIFA and/or Madden already have consoles. with real controllers. without streaming induced latency.
Though Comcast and EA teaming up .. has historical precedent, Poland should be very very concerned. :(
Cable is over. That is pretty obvious by their constant blundering around trying to find a problem that their solution solves.
Comcast's motivation is obvious, but EA seems pretty shortsighted. Probably a majority of their dedicated Madden / FIFA players that could be swayed into a subscription business are NOT Comcast subscribers. Yet.
Something tells me this is some kind of an attempt to impose DRM through the cable box, going after people who are accustomed to shelling out for Sports packages through Comcast to get all the games for their sport.
I like soccer, for example, but I don't pay for the Soccer sports packages, just the expanded basic.
But they figure I'll shell out to play the EA FIFA2013 game.
How wrong they are.
I'd rather play inFamous: Second Son on my PS4 without online and shell out the money for seasons tickets for me and my son and my friends to see Sounders FC in the actual stadium instead. Cheaper too.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Warning: I'm getting bounced more frequently to the Beta site once again; Dice may be having another go at trying to roll it out. Be warned.
I wonder what percentage of Slashdot visitors are immediately switching back to Slashdot Classic by using the link at the bottom of the page ?
If you don't like Slashdot Beta, then don't live with it. Use the link at the bottom of the page to go back to Slashdot Classic and send a _huge_ message to Dice at the same time when they come to look at their website logs.
If you like this idea, feel free to repost this message in other stories and help send a message to Dice they cannot ignore.
Why do I get the feeling this is going to be one of those things where Comcast degrades other internet traffic because they EA wants DRM you can't break?
Other than being able to test-drive a game before you buy it, why in the world would you want to do this? The overall quality can't be as good as an actual game console, can it? Otherwise it just sounds to me like yet another way to swindle people out of their money and give them essentially nothing.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
First off this has been rumored for what, years now? Secondly, there's no established business model or good business model for this. Do you "buy" a game you require and internet connection for at all (cause that really works well today) AND requires you to stay with that provider? Do you get an "all you can play" package, how the hell do you even price that? This isn't, and can't be, Netflix. Games range in price from $1 to $60, how do you price disparity that? Then there's the technological leaps.
Lag is a bitch no matter what game you play, and will make it really uncomfortable to impossible for high reaction time games like racing games or online shooters. Also there's the question of all that overhead cost. You are required to have a local minimum of the maximum userbase at any one of machines to actually run these games, and this isn't streaming video that can run on nothing servers either. Then there's down time, people already hate it for Netflix, and that's just a show that you can resume at any time. If it's a game your going to just throw your controller in disgust "yell screw this shit!" and consider never using it again.
There are soooooo many very difficult usolved problems that I don't doubt this will fail if it comes to fruition at all.
I will give it to Comcast & EA, this is definitely an interesting way to attack traditional consoles. It's very fitting that MS is one of the targets, as this was one of their favorite weapons (i.e. Bundling IE with Windows to attack Netscape, WMV to attack Real, etc.).
I'll be curious how they execute this platform envelopment attack as I think its success will largely rely on their operational efficiency (something neither Comcast nor EA are known for). Comcast certainly has a major advantage over other remote gaming providers in terms of latency, but even being the closest hop to their customers, I don't know if it's quick enough for certain games. I don't think they'd cache the game locally on the customer's X1 client as it those devices won't have anywhere near the processing power of a modern console. I also have serious doubts about using tablets as controllers as described however I presume their target is casual gamers (i.e. those who never owned a console before they bought the original Wii). It will be interesting to see how those users respond.
I am also curious to see how MS & Sony will respond. MS currently offers a Comcast app on the Xbox 360 (and I presume the Xbox One); will both sides continue with that service? Does anyone know how the financials work with that (i.e. does one side pay the other)?
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Comcast and EA? Isn't that crossing the beams?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm actually curious if any of the representatives from EA actually used the word "buy".
if i'm giving away my right to sell and/or lend the games, then surely the price should be under $10, and even that's asking a lot.
...
Wait, isn't comcast always adding caps and bitching that too much bandwidth is being used by its customers and they "just cant keep up! ( and maintain 43% profit margins)" So they are going to start streaming games? Cuz that won't tax the network at all...."We're sorry, but you've hit your monthly limit of 5 bytes, the next 5 will only be $100!"
when you can have BOTH!
Two winners of the Golden Poo, twice the shitty product. I can't wait!
If streaming games is anything like streaming video, it will be a game of patience as it buffers..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
5 years ago, I would of looked forward to it.
Now? I'll check to see if AT&T will offer being dragged thru a swimming pool full of salted razor blades as an alternative.
The latter would be more preferable....
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
So basically we're back to the arcade.. only in your living room..
and the Nabu network did it in the early 80's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NABU_Network
although this too was more of a download type of deal but it still was revolutionary and blew my mind when it came out.
Comcast needs better cable tv they are behind other cable systems. There nbc premier league extra time is a joke why put that on VOD when other systems have it as real part time channels that work like live tv channels.
any ways didn't hot cable Israel have some thing like this?
Right now with VOD you can see the control lag but that is ok when viewing a movie / show but to play a game with that?
Do I see a sith lord and apprentice team here? or is that just me?
half the time on demand wont work, the other half it bitches about the cable box THEY JUST GAVE ME
on demand is so easy its useless
and bill $7+ HR
On a lighter note, CDC labs in Atlanta have successfully injected DNA from Adolf Hilter into an airborne strain of the Ebola virus.
Hmm, Comcast is allowing other applications to use its DRMed platform for delivering TV. Developing a big platform requires lots and lots of money, and it works best if split across a very large number of users. Maybe this is why Comcast wants to merge with Time Warner? I believe the cell phone companies tried their own walled gardens in the early 2000s. They did not gain traction. I guess the same will happen with Comcast.
This type of monopolization by corporate companies is just sad. And its at a global level despite the pathetic, defunct EU's attempts at trying to 'level the playing field'.
Even more sad, few people care or are worried enough to say/try to get politicians to stop being bought and paid for corporate hand puppets. What else can we do? I have no faith in US citizens to stand up and knock Comcast and Verizon off the mountain of BS their standing on. You have politicians appointing corporate lobbyists, or former high ranking employees of those companies into the FCC and elsewhere within Federal government to help them keep their dictatorships.
Unless some miracle happens such as Washington suddenly exploding from a volcano, it is going to stay the status quo
Cable boxes already have terrible games on them that you can play. All this seems like to me is a licensing deal. EA is willing to slap their label on some of the shit games. I suspect we'll have some version of Tetris with football shaped blocks and a big picture of John Madden of to the side.