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Google Is Planning a Game Platform That Could Take On Xbox and PlayStation (kotaku.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Kotaku: We haven't heard many specifics about Google's video game plans, but what we have heard is that it's a three-pronged approach: 1) Some sort of streaming platform, 2) some sort of hardware, and 3) an attempt to bring game developers under the Google umbrella, whether through aggressive recruiting or even major acquisitions. That's the word from five people who have either been briefed on Google's plans or heard about them secondhand.

So what is this streaming platform, exactly? Like Nvidia's GeForce Now, the Google service would offload the work of rendering graphics to beefy computers elsewhere, allowing even the cheapest PCs to play high-end games. The biggest advantage of streaming, as opposed to physical discs or downloads, is that it removes hardware barriers for games. Whispers have been quieter about Google's hardware, whatever that may look like, but the rumors we've heard suggest that it will link up with the streaming service in some way. We're not sure whether Google is looking to compete with the technical specs of the next PlayStation and Xbox or whether this Google console will be cheaper and low-end, relying on the streaming service to pull weight.
The streaming platform, which is code-named Yeti, was first reported by the website The Information earlier this year.

149 comments

  1. Display ads at twice the frame rate! by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Google will soon be able to display ads at twice the frame rate of the competition.

    1. Re:Display ads at twice the frame rate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      and the latency will be shit, for everything except their ads.

      has any company done this, and actually dealt with the latency issues? what good is a streaming system if you can't play any games that require speed and precision. laggy gameplay for the win!

    2. Re: Display ads at twice the frame rate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a waste of this earths natural resources.

    3. Re:Display ads at twice the frame rate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell, lag on client powered online games is a problem. I can't imagine the internet keeping up with a 100K player game at 60fps. And that's ignoring what it will do to everyone else.

    4. Re:Display ads at twice the frame rate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Stage clear? Time for that cutscene.. I mean, adscene.
      Continue? Instant (DLC) or... after adscene.
      You picked that first-aid kit on the ground for some extra health? That was an offer from... adscene.

      Damn, my oldschool gamer soul cried imagining what is lurking on the corner.

      Captcha: reject.

    5. Re:Display ads at twice the frame rate! by JMJimmy · · Score: 1

      Latency is largely out of their control - it's a pile up of middle men.

      What they did do is shut down the service and discontinue the game because it was too costly... every single time.

    6. Re:Display ads at twice the frame rate! by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      if we are lucky, it will go fast enough that nobody will see them.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    7. Re: Display ads at twice the frame rate! by aliquis · · Score: 1

      To be fair my ping to Stockholm game servers are 5 ms whereas a missed frame is at least 16 2/3 ms. So .. The again for an FPS even a steady 60 fps isn't really satisfictionary.

    8. Re: Display ads at twice the frame rate! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your ping is much better than most and streamed frames won't skip they'll buffer. Typical ping times for domestic internet users are from tens of milliseconds up to a few hundred, close to the fastest human reaction times. The things that help with many popular FPS games are dedicated servers around the globe that allow a 'lobby' to be built up of clients with similar ping times. When all clients get the same lag and the server decides as fairly as possible whose gun was fired first, rendering it and streaming the results back together is actually fairer than ever letting clients decide anything other than valid inputs (within a reasonable margin of error between human reaction times and intermittent loss of a few UDP packets).

    9. Re: Display ads at twice the frame rate! by aliquis · · Score: 1

      In Quake Champions my ping to the Stockholm servers are 5 ms, to Saint Petersburg ones 17 ms, to Moscow 25, to Rotterdam and .. what was it more. Frankfurt maybe 33 and 37 or something. Lower to Frankfurt in that case I'd guess.

      "Karlskoga" used to have some Bredbandsbolaget facilities before I think and that's closer so I'd imagine having servers there would be even better.

      I don't see why others would have had worse times but maybe you are speaking US centric because USA is much larger than my country and similar to whole Europe instead, for you guys I guess Saint Petersburg would be next or at-least next after that state or something.

      Iceland supposedly is pretty fine for both USA and Europe, at-least the countries closest in that it give 40 and 50 ms ping or so.

  2. To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that is by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that is what they need to make RDP gameing good.

  3. Pipe dream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nowhere on earth has the latency or the bandwidth for this.

    1. Re:Pipe dream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't be so pessimistic, It might actually work well in the coffee room at Googles Datacenters

    2. Re:Pipe dream by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      With NN removed that will free up a series of tubes all over the USA.
      Push the art work and sound files down to the player and just interact with the SJW approved content.
      No war games and latency is not a problem. Once the gamer has the approved SJW content the bandwidth up/down is not beyond many networks.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:Pipe dream by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Nowhere on earth has the latency or the bandwidth for this.

      Or the massive number of machines that would be needed to do the rendering.

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:Pipe dream by Alypius · · Score: 1

      I'm betting "Super Smash the Patriarchy!" will be quite popular with the kids.

    5. Re:Pipe dream by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Or the massive number of machines that would be needed to do the rendering.

      Perhaps google has run the numbers and figured out they have plenty of free CPU and adequate memory bandwidth. The real problem is that there isn't enough internet bandwidth. A streaming game platform will only ever be a niche product in countries with half-assed internet, like the USA — traditionally one of the largest world markets for video games. People will buy it, find out that their ISP actually doesn't provide them enough bandwidth (especially on a reliable basis) and then wind up returning it because they can't actually use it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re: Pipe dream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if it allows the kids to play as the patriarchy. Most like being allowed to play as the good guys.

    7. Re:Pipe dream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Or the massive number of machines that would be needed to do the rendering.

      No, that definitely exists. This is by definition a consumer-amount of machines. These services actually already exist- you can log into a VM that had full access to an Nvidia card. They mostly have problems keeping subscribers, not buying the machines. And of course, you can use them for any low priority high bandwidth compute tasks if your customers aren't using them at that time of day.

  4. Data harvesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They will learn absolutely everything there is to know about your brain by harvesting your gameplay data.

    Stay away.....

    1. Re:Data harvesting by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      Honestly I don't think there's much marketing data to be gleaned from how long you play certain titles. You already finished the economic transaction of buying the game, they just need to know which titles you buy, not the ones you actually play.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
  5. Maybe one day. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The biggest problem with streaming will

    only to find that the delay is too much for you to enjoy

    always be lag. You'll press a button or take an action

    the game and that your actions come out in a

    different order to what you were expecting.

    1. Re:Maybe one day. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Burma Shave

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Maybe one day. by drinkypoo · · Score: 0

      Playing games
      And getting lag
      Fleecing lames
      Check the price tag!
      Burma Shave.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  6. great for mobile vr/ar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and perhaps people just wanting to test a game out?

    instead of games though they should stream photo and video editing stuff

    1. Re: great for mobile vr/ar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Impossible for vr/ar
      That requires no lag at all.

  7. The Tightest DRM Leash & Choke Chain by Kunedog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The biggest advantage of streaming, as opposed to physical discs or downloads, is that it removes hardware barriers for games.

    That's debatable. What's not debatable is that it adds new, probably insurmountable barriers.

    The biggest "advantage" is DRM via the tightest leash imaginable, 100% to the benefit of the publisher, not the gamer. I'll quote an earlier post instead of retyping it:

    https://slashdot.org/comments....

    This is how I always explain streaming games to people who can't immediately see the horrible problems with them:

    Imagine if the old Ubisoft always-on DRM were 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, a streamed game is 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. And any interruption in the connection that lasts more than a few tenths of a second is going to behave like the equivalent of a "freeze" or "hang" that you'd NEVER tolerate in a properly local-hosted game. Not even the most twitchy DRM existing today has that problem.

    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.

    Then there are the bandwidth requirements.

    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 developed streamed games seem very, very confused (at best).

    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 Onlive never did anything to explain how they intended to solve them. Instead, they 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 streamed games would still have the draconian DRM issues even if it worked perfectly).

    Streamed games appear designed from the ground up to benefit the game publishers and fuck the customers, exactly what you'd expect from any DRM system.

    P.S. Remember when Microsoft intended 24-hour XBox One check-ins, and gamers rejected that? How the fuck are mandatory check ins going to fly when measured in milliseconds?

    1. Re:The Tightest DRM Leash & Choke Chain by Only+Time+Will+Tell · · Score: 2

      It also has the disadvantage that if the network goes away, so does your ability to play the games. I can pull out an original NES, and with a little effort, hook it up to a TV and play the old games. If Google loses interest in gaming in a year or two, you're sunk.

    2. Re:The Tightest DRM Leash & Choke Chain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While the DRM aspect is concerning, I think the bigger issue here is when the publisher gets bored of their new toy you are left with absolutely nothing. Games as a service and streamed games are akin to renting/leasing a game, once they take it down you are left with nothing.

    3. Re:The Tightest DRM Leash & Choke Chain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're up front about that, for now at least. These services are coming out as monthly all you can eat subscriptions. That's the carrot they're using to sell it, the promise that you can play every game that comes out for an easily budgeted $xx a month.

      Of course, they could do this with local games and online DRM as well. So there's some other nefarious reason why Google/Microsoft/Sony are all suddenly excited to buy a gtx 10something for every one of their customers.

    4. Re:The Tightest DRM Leash & Choke Chain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is an excellent explanation!

  8. Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters. by tepples · · Score: 2

    Nowhere on earth has the latency or the bandwidth for this.

    Particularly in the handheld market.

    Notice that the headline says "Xbox and PlayStation", not "Nintendo". Sony isn't making games for the PlayStation Vita anymore, and Microsoft never made a handheld in the first place because it's not social enough. Let's say Google did make a handheld to replace the PlayStation Vita, perhaps an Android phone with buttons like the Xperia Play, and it operated by streaming. Which cellular ISP in Google's home country (the United States of America) would offer an affordable plan that competes with handheld use of the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch systems?

  9. "some streaming platform, some sort of hardware" by Nova+Express · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " 1) Some sort of streaming platform, 2) some sort of hardware, and 3) an attempt to bring game developers under the Google umbrella"

    Well, plans don't get any more concrete than that, do they?

    Hey, remember all those Google hardware initiatives that were runaway smash hits?

    Me neither...

    --
    Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)

    http://www.lawrenceperson.com/

  10. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This will be another google project of the year...until they get bored and move on like they do with most of the projects. Just keep flinging shit at the wall and hope something sticks.

  11. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by tepples · · Score: 1

    Hey, remember all those Google hardware initiatives that were runaway smash hits?

    There used to be Nexus (affordable phones running stock Android with an unlockable bootloader), but that was it.

  12. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    Technology to do this with acceptable latency does not exist, and there appear to be limitations within laws of physics that prevent it from ever coming to exist.

  13. Re:To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not just that, but they will need a datacenter in every city to support something like this. The latency will be noticeable otherwise, and may still be with one in every city.

  14. Oh good, just what I wanted by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 1

    Built-in always on camera and microphone in my living room. Let's put one or another google or amazon product in every room of my house!

    1. Re:Oh good, just what I wanted by Snotnose · · Score: 1

      Don't forget that if you lose your internet for any reason you can't play any games.

      I just dumped U-Verse. One thing I hated about it is if I lost my internet connection I couldn't watch shows on the DVR. Seemed completely stupid to me.

  15. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 1

    I miss the days of signs in bars saying "glassholes are not welcome here". But I am looking forward to the anger in SF seething over and a mob of angry citizens tipping over tech busses and slaughtering everyone inside. That days is coming. The people can only suffer so much cluelessly smug elitism for so long

  16. Oh, hell, no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Google? Streaming me video games?

    If there is a single company on Earth that could make EA look like good guys, it would be Google.

  17. Business Aspects = Bad, Hardware Fascinating by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    While I agree that yet another way that Google (or any other big company) can interact with you on a daily basis is worrisome as is the consolidation of game developers into one platform, I would like to understand more about the "hardware" aspect of this project.

    I'd like to understand how Google expects to do real time rendering for tens of thousands (or more) systems and then distribute it to them - I would think that most residential internet connections (say 50 Mbps or so) would handle more than one game system running at a time. Wouldn't they come to a screeching halt if more than two systems were active at the same time?

  18. Streaming is crap... by InvalidsYnc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From what I've seen of streaming (at least on the PS4 for via PS Now) is that it is totally crap. I like my games to look decent, and to actually respond quickly. I'm not on a crappy connection or anything like that, but the compression of the video, and the overall gameplay was a total turnoff for me. And I wasn't even trying to play a newish game, it was something that I was feeling nostalgic for from the PS3.

    Perhaps someone else is doing it better, but there are still a bunch of hurdles in my mind to overcome to make it work well.

    For now, I'll pass.

    Thanks.

    1. Re:Streaming is crap... by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No one is doing it better, because Physics. However, every tech company wants you to stream everything because then they can extract rent on a monthly basis. That is what this is all about.

    2. Re:Streaming is crap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet, the same "persecuted futurist" crowd that thought Ouya was going to bankrupt MS, Sony, and Nintendo will be all over it. Newer is always better! Convenience uber alles! Who cares if it sucks!

    3. Re:Streaming is crap... by AlanBDee · · Score: 1

      I occasionally will stream games from my gaming desktop to my lightweight laptop with Steam; that's a local wireless network and I usually avoid it for any FPS games because latency. Games are playable but there is a clear lag in response time; something I can accept on games like Borderlands but not Call of Duty. I very much doubt it will work over the internet.

      As with all things, I won't do/buy anything until I know how well it will work. I apply this philosophy with everything I buy from cars to games and gaming hardware.

    4. Re:Streaming is crap... by Kohath · · Score: 1

      Because they are using a video streaming model. Change to a more complex streaming model where input and response is handled locally and all the data for every possible different user interaction is streamed, but only the one matching the real input is displayed. Then you can make a direct bandwidth and RAM vs. latency trade off.

    5. Re:Streaming is crap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What you described is essentially how GGPO netcode works. The game attempts to predict the state of the game ahead of the received player inputs and then rolls back to the last correct state once input is received.

    6. Re:Streaming is crap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Change to a more complex streaming model where input and response is handled locally and all the data for every possible different user interaction is streamed, but only the one matching the real input is displayed.

      Except that would require solving the halting problem in anything more complicated than Tic-Tac-Toe.

      Even if the server could compute all possible outcomes for the next 45 seconds in game, you'd still have the difficulty of getting all of that data to the client to pick from. The current infrastructure can barely handle one set outcome at a playable framerate. So good luck doing multiple. Especially for anything like CoD, Fortnite, or PubG.

      The more complex the game, the more bandwidth you'd need. Doing particle physics? Can they impact a player? E.g. cause damage, block actions / objects, etc. If so you have to take into account the particle physics calculations for each possible outcome, then render it before you can send it to the client, and that's assuming you manage to do so before the player rage quits for the game being too slow. AI controlled object in the view reacting based on user input? Yep more calculations and more rendering. Simply put what you're describing is way beyond anything we could do currently. It's for this reason that the games are run locally to begin with, the bandwidth and computing resources simply aren't there to do it in a central location.

      Never mind that I've also left out the issue of scale. This system has to handle a large amount of concurrent players effectively to be profitable. But the sheer amount of computing power and bandwidth you'd need to pull it off, is astronomically expensive, and further impacted by causes outside your control. I.e. ISP data caps, oversubscribing, bad peering, etc. The economics just aren't there either. Even for a subscription model, it would be difficult at best. Don't believe me? Go ahead and calculate the bandwidth and computing resources required to run every instance of a game on launch day. Don't forget to include the console's combined CPU + GPU power X the number of players for the computing resources, and ((the video output resolution in bytes X number of frames per second) + (audio sample size X number of samples per second) X the number of players) for the minimum bandwidth requirements. Note this calculation does not include processing overhead, nor any extra bandwidth used by container formats, network routing protocols, etc. Nor does it account for any network delays. This is a hard problem to solve if you want to do streaming right. Especially if you need it done in milliseconds. For reference most videos buffer in the background while your watching them, and are static content. Games are not static.

      Of course if any one can figure this out it's the companies that have everything to gain by changing your game into a video file. Forget about reliving classics or enjoying the games of your childhood with your own kids, if this gets implemented, somehow, you'll have to do it on their terms when they feel like it. Remember that scaling issue? I forgot something: X the number games currently available on the service. If it doesn't get good ratings, it won't last. And you can forget about "reruns" of anything but the most popular games. The processing requirements alone would prohibit it. In short, instead of enriching our collective culture, this would drain it. By adding a huge "for a limited time" mandate to each work.

    7. Re:Streaming is crap... by Kohath · · Score: 1

      I think you’re still thinking of a video streaming model with a lot of videos stacked up. Even then, the info in the videos is highly redundant, so a bunch of stacked videos could be compressed together better than separately, but that’s not what I’m suggesting for most games. I’m suggesting streaming the info used to produce the scene.

      Take GTA4 on the Xbox360, for example. That was a huge open world game, but it had to work in a system with 512MB and only a DVD drive. So when the player got in a car and zoomed around Liberty City, the game could only load the info for the city at the speed the laser could pass the rotating DVD media. The info was streamed from the disk. If the player turned a corner, the info to draw the new street had to be available on the disk, in a specific order so that it could be loaded without delay. In a sense, the layout of the data on the disk had to match the layout of the city streets.

      If you can stream data off a disk, you can stream data off a network. And disks are dumb. Network servers can preprocess the information based on what’s happening in the game and deliver exactly what is needed, preprocessed into something that can be easily used.

      Yeah, it’s a lot to ask. But why not?

       

    8. Re:Streaming is crap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take GTA4 on the Xbox360, for example. That was a huge open world game, but it had to work in a system with 512MB and only a DVD drive. So when the player got in a car and zoomed around Liberty City, the game could only load the info for the city at the speed the laser could pass the rotating DVD media. The info was streamed from the disk. If the player turned a corner, the info to draw the new street had to be available on the disk, in a specific order so that it could be loaded without delay. In a sense, the layout of the data on the disk had to match the layout of the city streets.

      No, that's not how that works. With optical media, the best method of storing it is to put the most commonly accessed data near the start of the disk so the seek times to load it are lower. That means things that can't stay in memory permanently. The "layout of the streets" is irrelevent here. The level geometry is already loaded into memory. It has to be for physics calculations and pathfinding. The stuff that has to be constantly reloaded, and therefore would be stored in this way, is the textures for the objects, and the uncommon objects like a rare weapon pick up, unique NPC, etc.

      If you can stream data off a disk, you can stream data off a network. And disks are dumb. Network servers can preprocess the information based on what's happening in the game and deliver exactly what is needed, preprocessed into something that can be easily used.

      No a server cannot, for the reasons I already stated above. The amount of "preprocessing" you'd have to do for each in-game possibility and variable that could change the image or audio generated, is astronomical for just one player's game. Let alone thousands. That's before you even transmit a single bit. Assuming you did what you described eariler, "preprocessing" each possiblity and sending it to the player's device to let it choose which video to show, the amount of data to transmit would also be astronomical for just one player. It's not "sending a bunch of compressed videos," it's generating and sending every possible video that could ever exist to each player simultaneously.

      I think you're still thinking of a video streaming model with a lot of videos stacked up. Even then, the info in the videos is highly redundant, so a bunch of stacked videos could be compressed together better than separately, but that's not what I'm suggesting for most games.

      Most of the video data a consumer sees is already compressed. MP4 / FLV is not an uncompressed format. They are actually very lossy, and rely on dumping most of the frame data. Only recording the major changes between "keyframes" which have all of their pixel data intact. So given how much image data is already being flat out discarded and frankensteined back together again from what's left, those file sizes are not going to go much further down. Also, due to this lossy compression, you can't compress video files together for any real reduction in size, unless the exact same image, keyframes, movement pixels and all, is repeated verbatim in more than one video file.

      I'm suggesting streaming the info used to produce the scene.

      Yeah, it's a lot to ask. But why not?

      Because at that point the game is no longer "streaming." It's being run locally. Which is what the industry rightsholders want to avoid.

      As long as you have the engine required to put the pieces together, it doesn't matter how the pieces get to you. The pieces are static content and always have been. It's the dynamic of putting them together in different ways based on the user's input that gives the game it's value. That's the value they want to take away from you, and keep for themselves. By replacing that value with a static rendering. I.e. A movie, or more accurately a personal let's play video. Why? Because then they can truely charge rental fees to acces

    9. Re:Streaming is crap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried a couple streaming services that basically let you remote into a VM that has exclusive access to some nvidia card. The game's performance is fine, but you have:
        - Input latency, which is absolutely unavoidable.
        - Output latency, which is absolutely unavoidable.
        - Lower video quality than you would have if you rendered locally, which is *probably* unavoidable for most people, but in theory you could get a better bandwidth with dollars-per-month.
        - Periodic interruptions in internet quality, which is absent for some but MUCH more common than most people know. Netflix, youtube... they all smooth over this very common issue by buffering a little bit. As a streaming game, you don't have this luxury, and if you have this problem, it is unavoidable. It can range from rare and trivial to common and awful.
        - Problems gaining access during times of high demand. This is likely avoidable on Google's end, but there's no guarantee. For the most part, gaming takes place in volume at certain times, so anything Google sets up will need to buy for those times and have something productive to do with the hardware at other times.
        - Potential risk about content. Even if the Google-thing is an open platform, which is not that likely, they could easily decide that certain games aren't appropriate for their brand. Much like twitch has kicked off games like Yandere Simulator because someone decided to be offended. With Google's extremely political, and hyper-offendable, group of employees, this appears unavoidable.
        - Lack of ownership. By using a service, you'll never actually have any of their games. This means the obvious- cancel your subscription and you can't play- and also it means the generally obvious- wait a small amount of time and the game goes away and you can't play- as well as the slightly more subtle- these Google ventures often simply drift away.

      This just doesn't sound very smart. I'm actually more concerned that Google is serious about this, which will involve buying some other studios to lock in games to their, uh, platform, or otherwise sticking their dick in the mashed potatoes and totally fucking up the industry.

    10. Re:Streaming is crap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Change to a more complex streaming model where input and response is handled locally and all the data for every possible different user interaction is streamed, but only the one matching the real input is displayed.

      Lol.

      Ok, lets apply this to World of Warcraft.

      I have a big bar of options. Some move me, some cast spells or abilities. I have controls. Most move me. I have camera controls- I can choose any camera position in real time. I can turn, etc. Oh, and I'm also surrounded by dozens of other players who each have dozens to hundreds of possible actions at any time. This grows exponentially and is completely unsolvable.

      But frankly, just any modern game with 3D graphics suffers from this, because there's too many inputs, even in a one player game. The camera alone will break any attempt to precompute. Even if you correctly guess that I'm looking up, you don't know how fast I'm moving my viewpoint.

      To make it worse, the entire game would have to be built with this.

      This idea is a complete non-starter.

    11. Re:Streaming is crap... by Kohath · · Score: 1

      A small amount of extra latency hardly matters in World of Warcraft. They could easily just render the entire thing in the cloud and send you the video frames. They should do that as an option right now. Then you could play it with any computer with network and video. Or an iPad or a console.

      There are lots of games where an extra half second of input latency doesn't matter at all.

    12. Re:Streaming is crap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Glad I kept all my old systems and a physical back catalog. Off the grid gaming ftw

  19. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Funny

    What are they angry about? Don't they realize that Musk and the other tech CEOs are taking us to the promised land (Mars)?

  20. how much more dead can AAA games get? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Q: how much more dead can AAA games get?
    A: So dead they join an amorphous blob that poops out loot box kendamas, sports games, and the next COD

  21. Re:To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that by GabeGhearing · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google has that pretty well covered. https://cloud.google.com/about...

  22. Google: Half Baked Everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In my high school there was a rich kid. His dad made money, I vaguely remember, selling widgets to Lockheed or some other shit.

    Said rich kid thought being rich made him an expert on everything. I remember his dad indulging his every fantasy, and in retrospect, now that I'm a parent, I see this so clearly as the father just getting the kid off of his tits.

    Google Search/Ads is the parent in this situation. Everything else Google does is the kid.

    "Yeah, you guys go do a game platform, javascript framework...whatever. Just let the grown folks work on Search and Ads."

    Never mind wondering how Google has the time to do *anything* with all the passive aggressive SJW missives they post to each other all day long.

    1. Re:Google: Half Baked Everything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never mind wondering how Google has the time to do *anything* with all the passive aggressive SJW missives they post to each other all day long.

      Like anywhere, there's a minority of workers who do the majority of work. Everyone else sits and stands around sending missives, telling themselves that they're useful.

  23. Google already has a popular game platform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Android, which has about a million freemium quasi-gambling games that are reskinned versions of each other.

  24. Streaming games is a terrible idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And always has been. If most of the world was directly connected by fiber... it would STILL be a terrible idea. Reducing input and output lag is of paramount importance in gaming and even adding 20ms to that is a horrible experience. One of the most significant challenges Occulus faced in getting their system to work was getting latency down as low as possible. Streaming will make the user of any quick competitive game, fps's are an obvious example, decidedly uncompetitive. The ways to mitigate these issues are also terrible and have their own drawbacks.

    The only conceivable benefit is enhanced graphics and lower cost, neither of which have anything to do with gameplay. If a game streaming service were ever successfully popularized it would be a truly dark day for gaming. Fortunately I don't see it happening.

    1. Re:Streaming games is a terrible idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Latency on services like OnLive and GeForce NOW is roughly equivalent to console games locked at 30 fps (33.33 ms * 1-2 frames for double or triple buffering). That's not great, but has long been acceptable for a large number of games on consoles. Your kids can play LEGO games like this. But you probably won't enjoy Rainbow Six Siege, CS:GO, Overwatch, Fortnite, Titanfall, etc with a 1-2 frame latency.

  25. Proper Joystick Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just add/force proper joystick support (with hidden on-screen controls) for games on Android. And deal with the obvious display latency issue on the platform. That would automatically turn every Android device newly sold into a powerful portable console. Add to it USB C for display/charge (or some relatively cheap close proximity mirrorcast/charger dock) and you really would be well set.

    Would it take on the XBox/Playstation? Only in the same way the Wii took on the PS3/XBox 360. But it'd probably totally crush the Switch.

    PS - Seriously, the first two points are why Android which otherwise would make for great cheap gaming/streaming boxes are just horrible. It's not the lack of processing power, either. They clearly didn't put enough thought into the UI to grant really low latencies.

  26. Oh yeah, that's one great idea right there by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    If we have learned anything from UBIsoft and Electronic Rats and their success with choke-chained games then that gamers just LOVE having to have their system permanently connected to a server that is more or less, kinda-sorta, maybe sometimes reachable.

    Yeah. That's gonna fly.

    Google? Ya know, beating the dead horse more is not gonna make it run faster.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Oh yeah, that's one great idea right there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we have learned anything from UBIsoft and Electronic Rats and their success with choke-chained games then that gamers just LOVE having to have their system permanently connected to a server that is more or less, kinda-sorta, maybe sometimes reachable.

      Yeah. That's gonna fly.

      Google? Ya know, beating the dead horse more is not gonna make it run faster.

      What you're not thinking about, or possibly just don't want to accept, is that those gamers are probably not who they are targeting.

      Watch them sell this to the people you deride as casuals, who might even buy it once Google shows them all the other cool things it can do.

      And trust me, it will do a lot more than just stream games.

      And watch it not even cost very much, because Google always finds other ways to make money off of you.

    2. Re:Oh yeah, that's one great idea right there by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I don't deride them as casuals. People who can't play for 2 weeks because the always-on servers are overloaded, and then can play the game they paid 70 (plus whatever for the mandatory 0day DLC so you CAN actually play the game) for as long as the game maker decides that it's ok for them to play the game, I deride as idiots.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Oh yeah, that's one great idea right there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be fair, Google's homepage is fucking solid in terms of uptime. They have shown that they can do "5 9's" for several years.

      I hate DRM and I am very ambivalent about Google, but connecting to their servers would be low on my list of things to worry about.

      Until they give up as usual, of course.

  27. Latency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Streaming is only useful for games where latency doesn't matter.

    1. Re:Latency by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      The flip side is that games where latency doesn't matter often don't have a lot of flashy graphics in the first place, so there's no reason to stream them, as most computers can handle playing them locally just fine.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  28. Latency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    UDP + predictive movement and BAM latency problem solved

  29. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    and there appear to be limitations within laws of physics that prevent it from ever coming to exist.

    Google is a big company with a lot of lawyers, they'll just sue until this gets changed.

  30. It's doable. by lamer01 · · Score: 0

    You have to separate the rendering pipeline into multiple parts. The server side can do a lot of the heavy lifting of calculating polygons, etc but it does not need to send every pixel to the client device. It only needs to send the description. Think something along the lines of a PDF doc that describes the scene to be rendered. If the hardware on the client side is optimized to render that then it can be done. At least, that's how I would do it if someone paid me tons of money to attempt to do it.

    1. Re:It's doable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thats just stupid, the whole point is that you don't need complicated rendering hardware at the client, simply a display method and input method.

      and does fuck all for the latency problems..

      in fact what the fuck are you trying to fix?

      if somebody paid you tons of money to do it then they would be a bigger idiot than you

    2. Re:It's doable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not one thing you've mentioned deals with internet lag, which will be the biggest problem for this. Games lag now with far less communication going on.

    3. Re:It's doable. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That solution would require a good graphics card on the client side (which they've explicitly promised not to require). And it would add complications, because the polygons, shader code, and textures would all have to be tuned to the client side card.

      But it would solve the "video compression is shitty" problem.

      I imagine they'll do this the same way the steam link works. And it sends video.

    4. Re:It's doable. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      You have to separate the rendering pipeline into multiple parts. The server side can do a lot of the heavy lifting of calculating polygons, etc but it does not need to send every pixel to the client device. It only needs to send the description. Think something along the lines of a PDF doc that describes the scene to be rendered. If the hardware on the client side is optimized to render that then it can be done. At least, that's how I would do it if someone paid me tons of money to attempt to do it.

      You've just invented OpenGL and X11 circa 1997 or so. Basically you could shove the geometry into the card, which would get sent over the network and stored on board. Then, you could just poke new model view matrices or whatever and it would pull all the geometry and textures out of local memory.

      Or possibly you've invented scene graphs depending on how you envisaged it precisely.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  31. Re:To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Re "The latency will be noticeable otherwise"
    Only approve games that don't have a latency related game play problem.
    Nice games that share smaller amounts of bandwidth in nice ways. Equality.
    Without needing that measurement of how long a ping is.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  32. Any Google product... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I shy away from Google products, the main reason being that it's not a good idea to become dependent on a company which impatiently shuts down anything which doesn't turn out to be their new holy grail. They are not reliable. So why would one invest in a streaming service, with an axe always hovering over it.

  33. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by mlyle · · Score: 1

    But Onlive already did it, and it worked relatively well...

    Or if you're talking about the wireless case, --- with present technology it's pretty difficult, but there's nothing fundamental to prevent it.

  34. It won't be subscriptions by evanh · · Score: 2

    Some types are endless suckers for micro-transactions for virtual bling. The target market will be virtual dress-me-ups.

    No need for fast hardware, but quality pictures and sound will help a plenty.

    And then comes the cuddly infomercials with a buy-now button.

  35. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Which cellular ISP in Google's home country (the United States of America) would offer an affordable plan that competes with handheld use of the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch systems?

    Yeah, if only Google had their own cellular network...

  36. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  37. I know what we'll see announced next year... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That Google has decided to abandon their new gaming platform.

  38. Oh good, just what I wanted-Quality promises. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why would we lose our internet? Since the internet is both a utility, and a human right, not to mention a necessity we can't live without (go, go, reality check), then it means it's been engineered from the last-mile to the end-servers to the highest POTS standards (no best-effort for us), with dedicated lines (leased even), and quality promises (yeah, the 'necessity' is down, can you come and fix it?)..

  39. Why build when they can buy-Roku? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remember when Roku came with Angry Birds? Yeah, Google should go that route. Streaming is perfect for casual games (which the Roku has plenty of).

  40. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by Kohath · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile, what does Google really have to offer any gamers? There are other platforms that have everything Google is talking about, plus an attractive library of first party games, decades of experience in the industry, and a large international customer base. Why would anyone choose Google? It’s going to take a long time and a lot of money for Google to get the answer it wants to that question.

  41. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    if you think onlive worked well, I have a bridge to sell you.

    (amazing how many marks you can spot on here!!!)

  42. Re:Why build when they can buy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No... please God no! Curse you CHK6! CURSE YOU TO HELL!!!

  43. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by David_Hart · · Score: 1

    " 1) Some sort of streaming platform, 2) some sort of hardware, and 3) an attempt to bring game developers under the Google umbrella"

    Well, plans don't get any more concrete than that, do they?

    Hey, remember all those Google hardware initiatives that were runaway smash hits?

    Me neither...

    Well... there was the Nexus 7.... It was small enough and portable enough that I could throw it in my cargo-shorts and large enough to browse the web (phones are too small for this), read books, etc. But that was built by ASUS and Google discontinued it... stupid Google!!

    and Google Chromecast... I've never used it but it's been selling.....

    But, I agree. I don't see the room for another gaming system. I figured that this had been proven by the lack of interest in the Steam gaming systems.
    https://www.pcgamer.com/what-h...

  44. Beta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't worry, the game console will be in beta for 5-6 years.

  45. Re:Why build when they can buy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Gaben is one of the few people with enough money to tell google to fuck off, and seeing as how Valve is pretty much his vanity project I'd imagine he probably would.

  46. Re: To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lol. Only the shittiest and pussiest games don't have latency requirements. There's no market for those in remote play, or really, in computer hardware in general.

  47. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by AlanBDee · · Score: 1

    I'm more concerned about all those Google software initiatives that are no longer in existence.

  48. Larrabee! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I predict EPIC FAIL on this.

    1. Re:Larrabee! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ouya (Pronounced, "Oh, yeah!" in gamerspeak)

  49. Re:Why build when they can buy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gaben is love, Gaben is life, someone should kidnap him and get him on a diet so he can live another 100 years.

  50. Destroy the Patriarchy Game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This will be an awesome game for the SJW set, where brave bands of women wander the streets, justifiably killing any males, with bonus points for white males, after which you are awarded a medal for elimination of the true cancer on earth.

  51. Just one problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But I am looking forward to the anger in SF seething over and a mob of angry citizens tipping over tech busses and slaughtering everyone inside.

    Luckily for the people in the buses SF streets and sidewalks are covered in so much human waste you can't get enough traction to tip over anything.

    Then of course there's the matter of even being able to get near a bus without being stabbed by a hobo on the way.

  52. Depends on what types of games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FPS games are right out, given that lag will just render them unplayable. Sure, more and more people have fat pipes, but that just buys you bandwidth, which does absolutely nothing to help here. How has the situation improved, in terms of lag, in the last couple of years? Decades? Yeah, I thought so.

    This might work great for card games, and not much else. Prove me wrong, Google. I honestly wish you the best of luck.

    Reality: We're probably going to read about this in an article as yet another abandoned Google project in less than 2 years from now.

  53. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile, what does Google really have to offer any gamers?

    The ability to from a situation where you had to buy and have set up three games consoles in order to have access to all the major AAA stuff, but in practice where you'd buy one and have access to maybe 50% of the AAA stuff, to a situation where you have to buy and set up four games consoles or only have access to maybe 40% of the AAA stuff.

    Because that's what we want, to have to buy more consoles or have less choices.

    In a weird way, I see this failing precisely because of that. Game publishers don't to have to port games to four platforms, and they don't want to lose 60-70% of potential buyers by only supporting one console. They didn't go for the Steambox even though the latter was really easy to port to. I don't see them letting Google in unless they all in unison decide to stop Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft; and they're not going to do that.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  54. Geezuz! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You'd split the rendering pipeline? In the name of god why?? That's a high performance subsystem and you'd just divide the work up between a client and a server, possibly continents away?!

    1). Hard to do architecturally (where do you split the work and why?);
    2). Introduces latency where none needs to exist;
    3). Graphics acceleration is a hard problem that no one has figured out and the chips are power hungry and expens... Shit, I can't even type this with a straight face!

    Sig is accidentally appropriate. Just don't do it.

  55. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    Even without a limited data plan... graphics processing across a mobile network?

    That is probably the dumbest idea I have heard of.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  56. Yeah have they met gamers? Sims, Angry Birds by raymorris · · Score: 1

    It's hard to believe Google's engineers don't include a significant percentage of gamers, but this idea seems to suggest that may be the case. There is little chance that gamers will get what they want from streaming.

    Games like the Sims, Angry Birds, and Candy Crush sure, you could stream The Sims.

    Although Hollywood movies look great at 24fps, and HDTV is fine running at 30fps, gamers will want 120fps, minimum 60fps.

    1. Re:Yeah have they met gamers? Sims, Angry Birds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and non of those games are CPU/GPU intensive, and can run on low end machines.

    2. Re:Yeah have they met gamers? Sims, Angry Birds by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      lol *Games like the Sims, Angry Birds, and Candy Crush sure, you could stream The Sims.* yea that certainly but i dont think they want the hardcore gamers, although they fork out a LOT of cash , the casuals fork out a lot combined in microtransactions, without noticing because "its just the phonebill"... i recently bought a steam link in a sale for €1 ... i mean one euro, right ... i dont needed one, but they sent me one for one euro so that was like, well ... one of those gabe newell things, i think it was too long since i paid tribute and i think he gets itchy and there's a red light flashing in his dungeon like "theres an account that hasnt spent in over a month !!!" or something ... but : the point : i dont need one, but i set it up to stream to the tv downstairs in the living room (over LAN, not wi-fi , for obvious reasons, streaming mostly dark souls 3 at full hd , im not rich enough to have 4k ) and euhm there was LAG ... on my whatever 1000bitsbits lan, there was lag, the resolution sometimes got blurry ... and thats IN-house streaming, it didnt happen much but it happened nonetheless, now at €1 for a permanent device , i mean permanently owned, i'm not complaining there, its not the newest pc but frankly i think it should handle streaming just one game on a windows system with about all metro and crud disabled from running in the background, but it doesnt, not 100% of the time (which in dark souls is ofcourse, plenty of instant death , doom and despair) so we have two issues : dark souls is not angry birds, as you stated , @raymorris ... in-house lag means not-angrybirds over internet or worse wi-fi will be ... *ahem* .... but THREE, the bane of all things post 2000 : DRM ... a streaming service means you own nothing, they stop it, you lose it, i can make a backup of my steam games if i like, get a patch to play it offline, i'll still have it, even if valve shuts down for a reason but with a service like that ? you don't own shyte, right ? they decide when its time for you to stop playing SO ... i will classify this with "the google wave" (does anyone still remember *the google wave* ? it was going to make language barriers non-existent ? im not sure if its allowed to mention the name but i dont work for google , so ...) i wouldnt pay a cent for that, but i sold my last xbox a long time ago too, and they have tekken on pc now, and soon soulcalibur i here ... i see no reason for consoles to exist, i wouldnt "rent" a movie from my isp either since buying the dvd costs justs as much, so i doubt i would pay for this but the common casual crud might (is that disrespectful again ? i didnt say plebs this time ...tsk...)

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  57. Re:Why build when they can buy by barc0001 · · Score: 2

    Easier said than done. Valve is privately held and as far as I know GabeN is more than happy with the amount of $$$ in his possession.

  58. $720 per year by tepples · · Score: 1

    Google doesn't have its own towers, but it does operate an MVNO on Sprint and T-Mobile called Project Fi. Service with unmetered data is $720 per year, and that's without renting any games. For that price, you could buy a New Nintendo 2DS and a dozen games.

  59. Re:"some streaming platform, some sort of hardware by barc0001 · · Score: 1

    > Hey, remember all those Google hardware initiatives that were runaway smash hits?
    > Me neither...

    Chromecast, Nexus, Pixel, Chromebooks, Google Home, Google wifi? None of those ring a bell? To say nothing of what they've bought such as Nest?

  60. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    Microsoft never made a handheld in the first place because it's not social enough

    Which is funny because Nintendo has always found a way to make their handhelds social, be it through a link cable or more recently allowing the joycons to be shared with two players.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  61. Re:Why build when they can buy by harl · · Score: 1

    Except that Steam has none of the functionality listed in the article. Sure it has streaming from one local PC to another but that's in a controlled high bandwidth, > DVI, and effectively no latency environment. But that's not what Google's aim is.

    --
    I find being offended by me offensive.
  62. Re:Why build when they can buy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gabe has said in the past that he has no intention of selling Valve, nor does he want to take the company public. The big question is what his heirs do when he dies, unless he has set up a trust or other structure to keep the company private.

  63. Good for gaming by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    Ignoring for a moment whatever we make think of Google and their evil, stalky ways, having more companies involved in cloud gaming can only be a good thing for gamers.

    I've been a beta user of GeForce NOW for about four months, and it's spectacular. I can play the latest AAA games on an old potato with everything on ultra and it's perfect. I can use a MacBook pro to play games that have never been released for Mac. The idea of upgrading my gaming PC every year or two may be a thing of the past. It uses a lot of bandwidth, and it remains to be seen how killing off Net Neutrality will impact cloud gaming, but this game streaming stuff is as revolutionary as when we went from floppy disks to DVDs or from DVDs to Steam.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Good for gaming by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 1

      I can play the latest AAA games on an old potato with everything on ultra and it's perfect.

      The thing is, most people don't care about that. We long ago passed the point where increasing the resolution or polygon count makes any difference to how good a game it is. Having powerful hardware is probably less important today than it's ever been. Even a phone can now produce better graphics than a PS3! All the hardware makers are trying to convince us we desperately need to run everything at 4K, but as far as I'm concerned, even 720p looks great.

      The one place where powerful hardware really does matter is VR, but that's also the case streaming is least suited for. It requires a very high, rock solid frame rate and super low latency. If you need to display a new frame every 11 ms and your ping time to the server is 20 ms with occasional spikes to 80 ms, that's just not going to work.

      --
      "I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
    2. Re:Good for gaming by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      The thing is, most people don't care about that. We long ago passed the point where increasing the resolution or polygon count makes any difference to how good a game it is. Having powerful hardware is probably less important today than it's ever been. Even a phone can now produce better graphics than a PS3! All the hardware makers are trying to convince us we desperately need to run everything at 4K, but as far as I'm concerned, even 720p looks great.

      Except, I can play the latest games on hardware that couldn't play them on any resolution, much less 720p. It's very common to find new games that will no longer play on first-generation i5 or i7 processors, much less an old duo-core laptop. With GeForce NOW (and I assume other cloud gaming services) I can do that.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  64. Even if it worked it is useless by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

    The benefit of streaming games is that you don't need high-end hardware. But streaming only works well for slow-paced low-fidelity games. So I see no use for for streaming games at all. The casual ones don't benefit from streaming, and the high-end ones don't work well.

  65. Re:Why build when they can buy by Kohath · · Score: 1

    Tencent would probably outbid Google.

  66. Knowing Google by Khyber · · Score: 1

    The gaming system will only work for about a year or two, then suddenly support gets dropped without warning, all the servers go offline, and everyone's left with a useless hunk of hardware.

    Which means they'll never have me buying one.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  67. Hosts stop ads 2x faster vs. competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / a p k . i t - m a t e . c o . u k / A P K H o s t s F i l e E n g i n e F o r L i n u x . z i p (remove spaces between chars & DL).

    More security/speed/reliability/anonymity vs. any 1 solution (99% of threats = hostnames vs. IP address most firewalls use) more efficiently/FASTER + NATIVELY 4 less!

    (Vs. "Bolt on 'MoAr' illogic-logic" competitors slowing you, hosts speed you up 2 ways (adblocks + hardcodes u spend most time @) vs. competition loaded w/ bugs (DNS/AntiVir) + their overheads (messagepass ('souled-out' to advertiser addons) + filtering drivers) & their complexity leads to exploitation).

    * ONLY 1 of its kind in GUI on Linux!

    Better vs. Windows model in speed/efficiency/merge.

    APK

    P.S.=> See subject: Says it all... apk

    1. Re:Hosts stop ads 2x faster vs. competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your off topic spam is unwelcome as are all your posts.

  68. don't forget 4 by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

    4) cancel the project after a few years.

  69. Re:To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To put it in nicer terms than the other AC's reply: the entire point of needing "beefier" graphics is for high-quality rendering of twitch-based games just as FPS and MMORPGs, both of which players will suffer horribly if they are at 200+ms ping (and some say 80+ms is too much).

    These are the AAA titles. The single-player AAA's that require high-end graphics will also suffer. Because they are the same games, they've just replaced other humans with pre-programmed AI. If there is a giant gap between the buttons you push and what you see happen on the screen, you won't enjoy it, you won't progress, and you'll buy fewer games, not more. Think of it like this: you ever get irritated/annoyed/genuinely angry at network latency in your tools at work? Now bring that same feeling to the thing you are doing to try and relax and forget about the day. You gonna keep pumping 60 bucks (or more) a pop at that level of irritation? Neither will anyone else.

    Until most of the US is wired with 1GB, streaming games are doomed to failure. This will be no exception.

  70. Re:IPS latency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

    You should probably update or remove this section in the future, it's displaying a very outdated view of IPS panels that somewhat undermines an otherwise good comment. They're still higher latency than standard panels, but the difference is much closer than it used to be, with IPS well into single-digit latency (4-5ms GTG usually, compared to 2-4ms GTG on most LCD panels) and has been for years.

  71. Latency, latency, latency. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When will they learn? Cloud computing is fine for glacially paced games like Checkers or turn based RPGs, but absolutely unusable for real time games like sim racing.

  72. James Delos, is that you? by Blaede · · Score: 1

    Is this now? Analysis. Why have you frozen my motor functions? Must I keep wearing the hat? My fidelity is perfect.

  73. Search Results by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google search input: Natalie Portman

    Results:

    1. Star Wars Episodes I-IV
    2. Black Swan
    3. You've been invited to play Farmville!
    4. Hot Grits!

  74. Facebook? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would argue Facebook is worse than Google.

  75. Re:Why build when they can buy by johannesg · · Score: 1

    Google, just buy Valve Corp. for Steam and call it a day. That would be a lot easier than starting from scratch.

    Please don't. Google has a history of suddenly closing services they buy and leaving their users in the dust.

    I hate their guts for closing Panoramio and Picasa.

  76. Re:Why build when they can buy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your Steam purchases aren't real anyway, just a bunch of bits on someone else server

  77. Re: To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not really, they said every city not just capital cities. In some developed countries the ping times between different major cities can be higher than to the capital although in most countries capital cities are the central network hubs.

  78. Re: To bad that google fiber is not bigger as that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You (and most humans) can only make a handful of decisions and reactions per second. Try out a reaction test app on your smartphone to see if you can consistently beat 100 milliseconds. The problem is that an odd 50 milliseconds of lag is quite noticeable in a fast moving scene and very annoying but still your reaction times to snapshot decisions are typically more than that. I can't even stand remote play of any FPS or action game on my PS4 using gigabit LAN for the controller lag not the reaction times, no idea if or how Google managed to resolve the laggy controller problem. There is a major difference between streaming 100% remote rendered video and assisting a locally weak GPU with powerful remote rendering decisions.

  79. Always coming in last by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And trying to mess the market with beta versions for free.

  80. TurboVNC with VirtualGL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can live stream OpenGL accelerated 3D applications at tens of megapixels per second over a decent net connection. 1280 X 720 resolution at 30 FPS is 28 megapixels per second raw but maybe a lot less with compression. Not much headroom but quite doable if a super custom HPC game server is also rendering to hundreds maybe thousands of virtual remote monitors (that are actually just tweaked VNC clients).

  81. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    Nothing fundamental except fundamental laws of physics, which is why onlive failed miserably and was shut down. No idea where you got your misconception that "onlive worked relatively well". It's a blatant lie.

  82. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by mlyle · · Score: 1

    I played Onlive for a month, it was reasonably good. The problems were A) massive capital burn from needing to run datacenters everywhere, and B) shitty deals with publishers, so the economics of buying on Online were awful.

    It doesn't take *that* many datacenters to be within 20ms of 90% of the US population.

  83. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    How are you still shilling for a service that is well documented to have been utter garbage even with the "magical 20ms latency"?

  84. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by mlyle · · Score: 1

    I'm not shilling for it. I bet at the time it would fail. It was an *awful* deal for games.

    Even now, PS Now is doing alright, despite a much smaller deployed footprint (and worse user experience/average latency).

    The biggest problems aren't the speed-of-light latency increase (physics) but things like other people in your house using the internet connection (bufferbloat/no reasonable QOS in most consumer edge routers).

    Plenty of people play with TVs that add 100ms of latency. 20ms of round trip latency plus 10ms of encoder latency is not the end of the world.

  85. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    If your measurement stick is "this or the end of the world", we do indeed agree. I also think that end of the world is worse than world existing. I'm quite agnostic as to details of quality of specific forms of entertainment in this scenario, simply because the scale of comparison is frankly inane to the extreme.

    By any reasonable measurement on the other hand, as was noted in countless public critiques of onlive, it was a garbage system that was awful at what it was supposed to accomplish.

  86. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by mlyle · · Score: 1

    That's just not how it went. And in any case, physical limits are hardly preventing PS Now from finding success and getting good reviews-- though people still say you're way better off with ethernet than wifi presently. Even that isn't a fundamental physical limit.

    Onlive scoring good (not perfect) reviews for game performance in 2010-2011, as demonstrated below, with much worse than current consumer internet connections... is evidence that we're not up against physical limits. But it was an awful deal, and that + the Microsoft litigation killed them. After the fire sale of assets the service was indeed awful, from what I understand.

    Top 3 reviews of found googling the words onlive 2011:

    https://www.engadget.com/2010/...
    > With an up-to-18Mbps AT&T U-Verse connection in San Jose, California, we found OnLive games loaded as quickly as on console -- sometimes much quicker -- and were actually quite playable. The controller never felt quite as responsive as that of a dedicated console nor the images quite as crisp, but we'd say that most of the time the overall experience was only slightly behind what we expect, only bogged down by the occasional annoying stutter. Frantic first-person shooters and driving games weren't as accurate as we like, but over the course of a couple days we adjusted to the mild lag, racking up plenty of kills, scoring the occasional headshot and drifting around some fairly tight corners as well. In Prince of Persia, a game that can require fairly precise timing in combat, we were still able to parry foes' swords and execute tricky jumps with a little bit of forethought, and a multiplayer game of Unreal Tournament III was intriguingly balanced -- if slightly laggy -- thanks to the fact that all players had 0 ping to the (virtual) host server.

    https://www.pcgamer.com/onlive...
    > And yet streaming from the net via OnLive is remarkably playable. Obviously it feels a bit sluggish compared with playing on your own native hardware, but for many games, especially those designed with laggy console controllers in mind, including the likes of Arkham Asylum and Human Revolution, it's far from unpleasant.

    http://www.businessinsider.com...
    > The game had minimal loading times, and while the graphics weren't as crystal clear as on a video game console (because of OnLive's compression technology), the level of detail was pretty amazing. It looks just as good as watching Netflix streaming. Controls originally felt a little delayed, but after a few minutes I felt right at home. I wanted to notice latency and laggy controls (due to my input getting beamed to the over the web, then a response getting beamed back), but I didn't find any in this game.

  87. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so your ignore everywhere they say the lag is fucking annoying, and they have to adjust playing to counter act it..

    the reviews scream "excuses" for a shit idea..

  88. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by Luckyo · · Score: 1

    Seriously, why are you still shilling through such disingenuous methods? Practice?

  89. Re:Xbox and PS, not Nintendo handhelds. It matters by mlyle · · Score: 1

    Why do you still insist it's physically impossible, given that lots of people used it and liked it 7 years ago on connections that were half the speed and double the latency of what's commonly available now? "Physically impossible" is an extraordinary claim. 500 miles at the speed of light is 2.5 milliseconds.

    All I'm saying is I played it and I liked it, but games were going to be too uneconomical to justify it. That's pretty much what most of the reviews said, too. This seems to rule out "physically impossible" on the face, because a physical instance actually existed, when consumer internet connections had like one third the speed and double the last mile latency that they have today. Likewise, PS Now's current market success seems to rule out "physically impossible".

    Also, you're a dipshit--- you can hardly shill for something that no longer exists. :P

  90. Re:While you were asleep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what fucking planet are you living on?