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NVIDIA Launches GeForce NOW Game Streaming Service
MojoKid writes: NVIDIA has championed game streaming for a number of years now, whether it's from a GeForce GTX-equipped PC to one of its SHIELD devices or from its cloud-based GRID gaming beta service to a SHIELD. Today though, NVIDIA is kicking its game streaming business up a notch by launching a new service dubbed GeForce NOW. The service streams PC games from the cloud to SHIELD devices at up to full HD 1080p resolutions at 60 fps. It may be tempting to call GeForce NOW an official re-branding of its GRID game streaming beta but that is reportedly not the case. The GRID beta is going away with the launch of GeForce NOW (an update will replace the GRID app with GeForce NOW), but according to NVIDIA, GeForce NOW was re-architected from the ground up to provide a better overall experience. NVIDIA sees GeForce NOW as sort of a "Netflix for games." There is a monthly fee of $7.99 for a subscription, which gives customers access to a slew of games. There are too many to list but top notch titles like Batman: Arkham City, Ultra Street Fighter IV, GRID 2 and many others are included. In addition to the games included in the subscriptions price, NVIDIA will also be offering GeForce NOW users access to AAA-titles on the day of release, for a fee. The games will typically be sold at a regular retail prices but not only will users get to play those games via the GeForce NOW streaming service on SHIELD devices, they'll also receive a key for playing the game on a PC as well. To use GeForce NOW you'll need an NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV, SHIELD portable, or SHIELD tablet (with the latest software updates installed) and a SHIELD-approved 5GHz router. Your broadband connection must also offer download speeds of at least 12Mb/s. 20Mb/s is recommended for 720p / 60 FPS quality, and 50Mb/s is recommended for 1080p / 60 FPS.
I do not look forward to the future where all entertainment is streamed.
It puts too much power into the hands of the content providers and distribution channels. Arbitrary restrictions such as regional lock outs, approved devices and discriminative pricing are always a part of the package.
While there is a convenience to streaming services. I can only hope that the option for physical/local "ownership" of media is always an option.
Not entirely on topic i know, but relative (to this Luddite anyway)
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How is this different to that streaming service that went bust a few years ago because there's no way you can play most games with the latency of an Internet connection?
At least, I think it went bust, I haven't heard anything about it in years.
You want me to install an invasive gaming client that delivers no actual game content to me, imposes a network lag on all input, does not allow me to run a zero-latency LAN gaming session, does not allow me to run my own public server for my friends... And your business model is to get me to pay for this degraded experience?
...Good luck.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Imagine if the Ubisoft always-on DRM had been an inherent, unremoveable aspect of the game system rather than just something tacked on to a few individual games after the fact, such that Ubisoft couldn't even begrudgingly neuter it in a patch. Well, streamed games are even worse than that would be.
The game doesn't even run locally. All you get is streaming video/audio and all the lag you'd expect (including controller lag), which is a recipe for disaster in North America.
Let's say you're lucky enough to have a 30mb/s connection. Why would you want to use it to transfer your game's video instead of, uh, a DVI cable, which is capable of 4 Gb/s? The people who developed DVI apparently understood that that 1920 x 1200 pixels w/ 24 bits/pixels @ 60Hz results in bandwidth well over 3 Gb/s. The people who push streamed gaming seem very, very confused (at best).
Some people consider IPS monitors unsuitable for games requiring fast reflexes (i.e. FPSes) due to their double-digit response times. Internet latency is often worse and certainly more unpredictable than LCD monitor response time, and with streamed games it applies to audio and keyboard/controller/etc input too.
Those of us who know anything about bandwidth and compression and (especially) latency can see the enormous technical obstacles facing a service like this, and I've never heard anyone explain how they intend to solve them. Onlive (for example) did everything they could to lock out independent reviewers with NDAs and closed demonstrations. A friend of mine described it as the gaming equivalent of the perpetual motion scam, and IMO that's spot on (except that streaming would still have the draconian DRM issues even if it worked perfectly).
Streamed gaming appears designed from the ground up to benefit the game publishers and fuck the customers, exactly as you'd expect from any DRM system.
The only way "game streaming" will ever work in my opinion is where files are sent to the machine on a predicted as needed basis. Your local machine will still run the game per usual but the 50GB's of assets will not all be downloaded at one time. Blizzard games are doing this now and it really seems to work well.
Now as for the customer getting the short end of the stick, it's not all bad. If your going to be playing an online game your at the mercy of the publisher anyway. At least with Blizzard's version of streaming you don't have to wait nearly as long to play once you buy it or the patch comes out. So that part is a plus.
I am not sure this is just a DRM scheme, I think it's more of a money grab on the publishers part because anytime you can cut out the middle man you stand to make more money. In this case the middle man would be your local game stores.
So part DRM part money grab part customer service, it's a lot of trade offs and you have to decide what ones your willing to make.
For me Blizzard and Valve have done it right and I buy games from them. Once they decide to turn all evil empire on me I will complain a LOT and everyone will know about it. Until then they are OK in my book for now. On a side note, out of all the game consoles I own I refuse to do any sort of digital purchases anymore. They are so locked in it's just giving customers a middle finger.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ
Streaming video games is weak on it's own merits. PC and console are already the best bets. Nvidia deserves to lose every penny they allocate for a Linux (Android) game device. For years and years they stymied Linux and now they want to profit on Android. Dicks. Yeah their video cards are good, so were 3DFX's who they sued and bought out. Credit for good video cards goes to their devs, not their management.
http://www.geek.com/games/nvidia-sues-3dfx-564829/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3dfx_Interactive#Acquisition_and_bankruptcy
I buy Nvidia cards because they are the best bang for the buck. If another card was equal in performance and reliability, I would choose the other every time because of Nvidia's decade of dickmoves toward Linux/BSD.
With Windows being the backstabbing global spyware that it now is in totality, what needs to happen is game companies need to compile (port) all the games to Linux. Consumers should be on Linux. PC's should sell with Debian or openSUSE pre-installed, not Windows Spyware. Companies and governments and supercomputers and the even the international space station already have moved to Linux. The smart people have been on Linux for a long long time. Also, it is not a technological hurdle whatsoever to offer games on Linux (PC) since they already port to PlayStation 4 (console) which is a forked BSD kernel.
Nvidia pushing an Android device and game streaming should make your face cringe. Again, video link above. Dicks. Nvidia can optimize Windows spyware for the rest of it's short life since they chose the absolute wrong OS to support on principle. I'm not against Nvidia waking up and smelling the Linux coffee just stop riding the fence for cash. I'd possibly give props to Nvidia if they shunned Microsoft because of spyware and deceptive business practices. I haven't seen that happen yet.
and if comcast / espn / other get's there way you have to buy stuff like ESPN online / diseny online and other for a basic price of $40+ just to just be able to add this on.
It's getting quite hard to NOT buy a gaming PC, given the fact even the intel solutions are now able to run most good games at a decent frame rate.
The era where you could buy a machine that won't even boot the games is quite over.