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Google Gets Into Game Streaming With Project Stream and Assassin's Creed Odyssey in Chrome (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

Earlier this year, we heard rumors that Google was working on a game-streaming service. It looks like those rumors were true. From a report: The company today unveiled "Project Stream," and while Google calls this a "technical test" to see how well game streaming to Chrome works, it's clear that this is the foundational technology for a game-streaming service.

To sweeten the pot, Google is launching this test in partnership with Ubisoft and giving a limited number of players free access to Assassin's Creed Odyssey for the duration of the test. You can sign up for the test now; starting on October 5, Google will invite a limited number of participants to play the game for free in Chrome. As Google notes, the team wanted to work with a AAA title because that's obviously far more of a challenge than working with a less graphics-intense game. And for any game-streaming service to be playable, the latency has to be minimal and the graphics can't be worse than on a local machine.

37 comments

  1. So does this mean i can play without U-pay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FINALLY i can play all those ubisoft games ive been looking at all these years.

    1. Re:So does this mean i can play without U-pay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Better yet, there is no need for Windows at all any more.

  2. I foolishly signed up for gmail... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be using google's "game service". I've given you enough of my information to you google, you can see you way out, honestly hope the door gives you a few splinters in your ass.

    1. Re: I foolishly signed up for gmail... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I generally agree with this sentiment but what will they gain from your video game playing style analytics? Forward your insurance company what hand you likely jack off with?

  3. ISP's and servers local to users are the issue by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    ISP's and servers local to users are the issue
    Google has lot's of DC's but this not an video site like http://youtube.com/ where some buffing or being pushed to an cluster with an higher ping but less load is ok.

    also with some games it can be 1 user per video card and say max 4-5 cards in an 3-4 u server? + any other systems needed for encoding / MGT.

    On the ISP side CAP's / network neutrality can be very bad for this. Also what if your local node / RT / CMTS / is over loaded? Also the new OTT Tv that is NOT multi cast does not help as well.

    1. Re:ISP's and servers local to users are the issue by CatalyticDragon · · Score: 1

      Current server products give you 4 GPUs into 1U or 8GPUs into 4U (depends on the storage and CPU requirements). That's pretty good but when people optimize for this it could also increase. Those GPUs tend to have more memory. Given average VRAM usage you could have five or six gamers on a GPU before memory is a problem. The other big issue is compute but there are tricks there too. Not all gamers are in areas of high complexity all the time and not all gamers are running at the same resolution all the time and not all games require the same frame rates. Different service levels would give different quality settings I assume. You might be able to have two 4K gamers on a GPU or 8 1080p gamers on it. With clever load balancing you could mix and match much like we do with virtual machines that have very different usage patterns. We also have clever techniques like variable rate shading and 'radeon chill' that reduces overall load allowing more simultaneous users. And in the future things will get even more clever with distributing load over multiple GPUs for even more fine grained control. I can envisage 100,000+ simultaneous users supported in only a moderate 200 rack installation. A large data center might have 1,000 to 2,000 racks.

    2. Re:ISP's and servers local to users are the issue by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      8 gpu's needs 128 pci-e lanes at X16 and 64 pci-e lanes at X8.

      AMD EPYC systems only have 128 pci-e lanes and some are need for other server io / server chip set stuff. INTEL systems have less unless you get a quad cpu box.

      Even then will the provider force there images on to the game dev's?
      Game dev's force there own images that may only work with real GPU's VM in passthrough mode ok.

  4. I don't see much benefit by imidan · · Score: 2

    On the cynical hand, it seems to me that game streaming is just another (perhaps the ultimate) way for a company to demand that I pay monthly rather than just buying the software I want.

    But on the other hand, it seems like there could be real value to it. With streaming, I could play any game on Linux or elsewhere, while the developers only have to support one OS. I don't have to worry about installing games anymore, or patching them. I never have to worry about driver incompatibility (or maybe not never, but less).

    Despite whatever positives it might have, I'm reluctant to get on board. I don't want to have to be online to play. I do want to be able to keep playing after the streaming service abandons a game I like. I don't want to pay monthly, even if I get access to a larger library of games; I'd rather buy individual titles I want.

    I guess I just don't see it as an advantage until the payoff to me becomes much greater. Right now, the benefits mostly seem to be in favor of the businesses.

    1. Re:I don't see much benefit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't condone piracy, but it has always been some comfort that if say Steam or XBox Live ever shut down that I could hop on my pc and pirate the hell out of the games that I legally purchased a right to use. This wouldn't be possible under the streaming model. But then I wouldn't really be paying for a right to use it indefinitely under the streaming model.

    2. Re:I don't see much benefit by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      On the cynical hand, it seems to me that game streaming is just another (perhaps the ultimate) way for a company to demand that I pay monthly rather than just buying the software I want.

      Game streaming is where it's at. I thought the same way you do, until I gave it more consideration (and until I tried GeForce Now, which I am still testing). The question isn't whether or not to pay, it's how much I'm willing to pay.

      How much are you willing to pay to be able to play games on ultra settings on computers that don't meet the minimum system requirements for those games? How much are you willing to pay to play a AAA game on a Mac that hasn't been released for Mac. PC games on Chromebook?

      So far, as I said, I'm beta testing GeForce Now and it's semi-miraculous. It uses a lot of bandwidth, but I've got a lot of bandwidth to spare. Since I'm testing it, I don't pay a penny, so I think it's the greatest thing ever. If they go into full release tomorrow and want $49.99/month, they can go fuck themselves. If they say $10/month, I'd think about it because it's definitely worth that much to not have to buy a new video card every year and a new processor & mobo (and memory, and operating system) every other year.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:I don't see much benefit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the cynical hand, it seems to me that game streaming is just another (perhaps the ultimate) way for a company to demand that I pay monthly rather than just buying the software I want.

      You mean buying a license. It's no different from movie or music streaming, hugely valuable to be able to pay a monthly fee and just play whatever you want on demand. Sure there will be edge cases where it doesn't work but for the vast majority it's a good thing.

      Despite whatever positives it might have, I'm reluctant to get on board. I don't want to have to be online to play. I do want to be able to keep playing after the streaming service abandons a game I like. I don't want to pay monthly, even if I get access to a larger library of games; I'd rather buy individual titles I want.

      Of course some people will prefer that and that's fine. Economies of scale will dictate the viability of this and of the old model just like they have for music and movies. There was a shift to downloadable content (torrents, itunes, etc) rather than having to go out and buy physical media (or wait for it to be delivered), then services like netflix, hulu and popcorn time showed the popularity of on-demand streaming and it's likely to go the same way with gaming if the technical limitations can be overcome.

    4. Re:I don't see much benefit by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 1

      Expect the service to be half the price that you are not willing to pay (https://gaming.liquidsky.com/). To pay monthly is one thing. But if they limit your access like these fellas do they can also go fuck themselves (1440 hours/year is not that much).

      --
      sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
    5. Re:I don't see much benefit by imidan · · Score: 2

      How much are you willing to pay to be able to play games on ultra settings on computers that don't meet the minimum system requirements for those games? How much are you willing to pay to play a AAA game on a Mac that hasn't been released for Mac. PC games on Chromebook?

      It's a good point, and one that I've played around a little bit with Steam streaming. I have my powerful desktop computer in my office, but I can install a game on it and then go out and play it on my laptop in the living room (even on my MacBook Air, I suppose, although I stream to a laptop with a larger screen). And the performance is pretty good. Not always great; I see some I/O latency sometimes. But then I've done nothing to try to optimize my streaming experience. Plus, they talk about streaming games being run on machines with huge graphics arrays that allow for rendering far beyond the abilities of my desktop.

      I see the writing on the wall. Game publishers would be crazy to go any way other than streaming, because it allows them to have total control over the binaries for their game. No more piracy, no more cheating, no more user modding, plus they get to charge in perpetuity for every game.

      I mean, I was reluctant to get on board with Steam, and one day I bought a boxed game at the store and brought it home and inside the box was a Steam code. At that point, I gave up and started buying stuff in Steam, and today I have a library of 170 games there.

    6. Re:I don't see much benefit by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      I play with wired keyboard and mouse because I do not like the latency of wireless keyboards and mouse, how much would I be willing to pay to play a streamed game, nothing, in fact I would have to be paid.

      What this is really all about, it is a great big ole con, they want you to rent games for the rest of your life and not buy them once, come on in sucker. Infinite copyright and the cartels ban the selling of content, for infinite greed.

      Wont work, they are already at saturation on gaming and really games are not selling that well at the moment.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    7. Re:I don't see much benefit by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I play with wired keyboard and mouse because I do not like the latency of wireless keyboards and mouse

      Same here.

      If you have a fast (and clean) internet connection, you will not notice any latency. I play racing games and shooters mainly, and being able to play at higher FPS means I can actually score better on GeForce now than I can running those same games on my PC.

      Wont work, they are already at saturation on gaming and really games are not selling that well at the moment.

      PUBG has grossed over $1.5 billion in what, eight months? Games are selling great. Let's hold off on holding a bake sale for the poor struggling video games industry.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    8. Re: I don't see much benefit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound like a fucking shill. There's no way even a 50mbit stream will look as good as the real thing, and lag sucks

    9. Re:I don't see much benefit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I play with wired keyboard and mouse because I do not like the latency of wireless keyboards and mouse

      Specifically what mouse and keyboard do you use and which wireless ones do you not like the latency of? Because you seem to be mis-categorizing the issue, it isn't wired vs wireless at all. That has been debunked a number of times, here is just one example.

    10. Re: I don't see much benefit by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      You sound like a fucking shill. There's no way even a 50mbit stream will look as good as the real thing, and lag sucks

      And yet, it does. I'm getting 100 Mbps and I'm playing Far Cry 5 on max settings and there is no lag. Occasionally, there are some audio stutters, but it's still in beta (and free) so I'm not concerned. If the current quality is any indication of what the finished product is going to look like, game streaming is going to be big. I'm thinking the big publishers will start setting up their own streaming services. For example, no Origin games are available on GeForce Now.

      I had to get my ISP to replace a local splitter because I was getting packet loss early on, which was degrading the quality, but once that was fixed, it's all good. The most popular games on the service are Fortnite and PUBG, so the lag must not be bad.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    11. Re:I don't see much benefit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In a general sense a cheap wireless device is likely to be more laggy than a cheap wired one but then again if you're concerned about latency you're unlikely to be digging through the bargain bin for your peripherals.

    12. Re:I don't see much benefit by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      How much are you willing to pay to be able to play games on ultra settings on computers that don't meet the minimum system requirements for those games?

      Nothing. I don't really care about the settings (for normal play, I do crank them up at the beginning to ooh and ahh.)

      ? How much are you willing to pay to play a AAA game on a Mac that hasn't been released for Mac. PC games on Chromebook?

      Nothing, I don't game on a mac, and I don't use a chromebook.

      When youtube/netflix never needs to buffer at 1080p (and only 30fps) doesn't ever buffer, maybe. Til then, fuck off.

      --
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    13. Re:I don't see much benefit by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      then services like netflix, hulu and popcorn time showed the popularity of on-demand streaming and it's likely to go the same way with gaming

      Movies and TV are watch once. You need constant of new content. Games can have a lot of replayability.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    14. Re:I don't see much benefit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You were streaming on your local network, it is completely different animal. Huge part of population doesn't and (because of systematic problems) will not have similar speed/latency for external game streaming for a very long time. Game publishers would be crazy to reduce their client base by 90%.

      "huge graphics arrays" - are there any real life examples of those? It looks like for now they pretty much have to have the same hardware as local users. It doesn't scale at all.

    15. Re:I don't see much benefit by Solandri · · Score: 1
      I think game streaming is the future (aside from competitive gaming where absolute minimal latency is required).
      • If you buy your own GPU, you're spending say $360 every 2 years to stay relatively state-of-the-art. That works out to $15/mo.
      • If you're paying to stream games, your monthly payment is being pooled with all other streamers to buy state-of-the-art GPUs. It's this pooling which creates the economic efficiency. If at a maximum only 1/3 of subscribers will play games at any one time, then essentially what you're doing is equivalent to 3 people pooling their money to buy a $360 GPU every 2 years. That GPU gets passed around between them so they can use it to play games one at a time. Their individual cost then is just $5/mo (vs $15/mo for buying your own GPU) for almost the exact same gaming experience.

      The improved economic efficiency is just too massive for buying individual GPUs to continue to make sense for most people. It's actually pretty similar to how Amazon has made a massively successful cloud computing business (AWS). Or how everyone uses Gmail or Hotmail or Yahoo mail instead of setting up their own personal mail server.

      That said, as you point out the client is pretty immaterial. The way these game streaming services (including Steam In-Home Streaming) work is by converting the game display into a h.264 video stream in real time. To the client, there's very little difference between a streamed game and a streamed movie. And pretty much everything (including low-end cell phones) come with a h.264 hardware decoder nowadays specifically to let you stream movies. So just about anything could be used as the client for streaming games.

    16. Re:I don't see much benefit by CatalyticDragon · · Score: 1

      It is a way to lock you into a subscription model but there are also reasons not to hate it. 1. Roughly speaking there's about a billion gaming consoles on the planet. More if you include handheld. That's a lot of hardware being produced that ultimately spends a lot of time unused. Consolidating it into managed clusters which can also be used for other things during off-peak is highly efficient. Less e-waste and that's not a bad thing. 2. People would be able to play really high-end games on commodity hardware. No more $3-4,000 gaming PCs or even a need for higher end consoles. Anybody with a browser, screen, and internet connection can have a similar experience. Sure there will be the HD, 4K, 8K services at different price points but there will be more than just Google's service so competition I hope will keep prices in line. It's computationally much more expensive than Netflix but shouldn't cost an order of magnitude more. 3. Graphical and feature upgrades happen magically. Your display hardware becomes obsolete at a much slower rate. You'll one day want an 8K screen upgrade but everything else from ray-tracing to advanced AI can just happen in the background without a new top of the line GPU being required. 4. Patching just happens. 5. No install times. 6. Almost no load times either conceivably. 7. Developers would be free to use very powerful backend services. Not being limited to a single system they could run graphics on one cluster, AI on another, physical simulations on another. Microsoft and Cloudgine showed a demo of something like this in 2015 with Crackdown 3. They showed off an entirely destructible landscape with multiple players possible because that expensive computation was running in their cloud service. 8. That brings us to new features. That demo was pretty cool but imagine a GTA online style game where the entire world and events within can be permanent rather than just localized and respawning. It opens up new storytelling abilities. Entirely new modes of play. Far more immersive and advanced world simulations would be possible. 9. And as you say you're instantly cross-platform and you're also portable. Ultimately it's going to be convenience that wins.

  5. Lawsuit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Project Stream sounds like Project Steam, which sounds like Steam.

  6. Nothing new by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hear Donald Trump is also into streaming...

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  7. Drop dont be evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ....annnnd right in bed with Ubisoft.

  8. not satisfied with its current data horde.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they now want all your in-game actions, transactions and chat, too. fuck off, google.

  9. US only by Andy+Smith · · Score: 1

    Denied here in the UK. Makes sense that it would be US-only due to latency issues, but still... boo hiss.

  10. WMWIW... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not new. Wake Me When It Works...

  11. Lastest Chromecast by MrDoh! · · Score: 1

    If the new Chromecast device with bluetooth supports pairing a gaming controller and can stream these games? Never going to need a PS/Xbox/other gaming device ever again.

    --
    Waiting for an amusing sig.
  12. can't cut it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't going to work well. Google can't cut it anymore. Too much brain drain since they started creating an intentionally hostile work environment. Look at the new Gmail - complete failure. And the relevancy of search results continues to decline.

    Google used to be full of smart people. Then they went off the "Progressive" deep end. Now they're a company full of inbred private school nepotists and deranged politically correct degenerates.

  13. Load times? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The most annoying thing about my home console is the load times (eg when fast travelling).

    Obviously having a boatload of memory to keep assets hot isnâ(TM)t cost effective on a home console. Maybe on a streaming server (ie one serving multiple users) itâ(TM)ll make sense to have enough memory to keep assets live, if those assets are shared by all users.

  14. JEWgle exposed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Khazar Talmudic Jews believe this of all they call goyim/gentiles (any non-jew): Jews = biggest racists of all for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Peron, Spanish inquistion, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above.

    Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud.

    This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple & they killed him for it. Jeremiah did the same to them also + the Essenes could not stand them either breaking away from the pharisee corruption):

    Jew Talmud excerpts (the book that calls Christ's mother a whore & a bastard of a roman soldier):

    1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim is like killing a wild animal."

    2. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."

    3. Sanhedrin 59a: "A goy (Gentile) who pries into The Law (Talmud) is guilty of death."

    4. Yebhamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age."

    5. Schabouth Hag. 6d: "Jews may swear falsely by use of subterfuge wording."

    6. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Do not save Goyim in danger of death."

    7. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Show no mercy to the Goyim."

    8. Choschen Hamm 388, 15: "If it can be proven that someone has given the money of Israelites to the Goyim, a way must be found after prudent consideration to wipe him off the face of the earth."

    9. Choschen Hamm 266,1: "A Jew may keep anything he finds which belongs to the Akum (Gentile). For he who returns lost property (to Gentiles) sins against the Law by increasing the power of the transgressors of the Law. It is praiseworthy, however, to return lost property if it is done to honor the name of God, namely, if by so doing, Christians will praise the Jews and look upon them as honorable people."

    10. Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia 17: "A Jew should and must make a false oath when the Goyim asks if our books contain anything against them."

    11. Baba Necia 114, 6: "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."

    12. Simeon Haddarsen, fol. 56-D: "When the Messiah comes every Jew will have 2800 slaves."

    13. Nidrasch Talpioth, p. 225-L: "Jehovah created the non-Jew in human form so that the Jew would not have to be served by beasts. The non-Jew is consequently an animal in human form, and condemned to serve the Jew day and night."

    14. Aboda Sarah 37a: "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated."

    15. Gad. Shas. 2:2: "A Jew may violate but not marry a non-Jewish girl."

    16. Tosefta. Aboda Zara B, 5: "If a goy kills a goy or a Jew, he is responsible; but if a Jew kills a goy, he is NOT responsible."

    17. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 388: "It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciator everywhere. It is permitted to kill him even before he denounces."

    18. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348: "All property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which, consequently, is entitled to seize upon it without any scruples."

    19. Tosefta, Abda Zara VIII, 5: "How to interpret the word 'robbery.' A goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women slaves, etc., from a goy or from a Jew. But a Jew is NOT forbidden to do all this to a goy."

    20. Seph. Jp., 92, 1: "God has given the Jews power over the possessions and blood of all nations."

    21. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen H

  15. it doesnt work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Sorry, this project is currently open in the U.S. only"