Google Is Expected To Reveal Game Streaming Service At GDC In March (extremetech.com)

Google has sent out invites to this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) press event, where the company is expected to unveil a new game streaming product. ExtremeTech reports: There have been rumors about a Google game stream product or service for several years. Initially, leaks pointed to a hardware platform called Yeti that would stream games to a connected display. In late 2018, Google rolled out a game streaming test called Project Stream. To publicize the demo, it worked with Ubisoft to give everyone free access to the new Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Google wrapped up Project Stream in early 2019, offering players a free copy of Assassin's Creed Odyssey as thanks. Of course, you'd need a real gaming PC to run that version.

Google's GDC event will take place on March 19th at 10 AM Pacific. All we know for sure is that Google is there to talk about a gaming project. It just seems extremely likely that it will be a new phase for Project Stream. It might remain browser-only, but Google does have a giant network of TV's out there with Chromecast streaming dongles plugged in. If it could leverage those to stream games, it could instantly have as many eyeballs as Sony or Microsoft.

Comments

To bad google fiber is going no where as this need

[Joe_Dragon]

To bad google fiber is going no where as this needs good cap free Internet to work.

Welp

[RickyShade]

Pack it up and go home, everybody else. Google is here to dominate yet another market.

Re:Welp

[MemoryDragon]

This market will be fractured again by exclusives once companies start to earn real money with streaming.

Re:Welp

[bn-7bc]

This migt be a stupid question, but what preventsbyou from installing a steam clent on the google gaming instance and ebjoing your games as usual? As I understand these game streaming services they simmply give you a hosted windows instance on som poerfull serveres (with plenty of gpu, cpu,ram and storrage) and let you run what you want

Re:Welp

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Nothing, excepting for the lag time of video to you, and response back to them, making it playable. Presumably ths service has been optimized and the expensive network hardware readied to address this.

Also, I don't know how your licensed copy works with multiple installations, one being, presumably, your home machine, and the other your rented cloud virtual PC.

Let us pray

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Let's hope that this new service comes with micro-transactions and in-game purchases, because that's what people really want- more ways to drain your wallet.

Re:Let us pray

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Let's hope that this new service comes with micro-transactions and in-game purchases, because that's what people really want- more ways to drain your wallet.

I was ready to pay an extra $100 to Mechwarrior Online to get my own Atlas, but when they announced PvP only, to hell with it. I wanna preen in the cities and wreck NPCs, not get taken down by some scooter because a game designer needed my big weapons to miss it because rock paper scissors balance.

Re:Let us pray

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

What I can tell you about that is this: it sounds like you're really into it.

What's Google’s business model?

[Kohath]

I predict their game streaming service will be full of ads.

Re:What's Google’s business model?

[sad_]

i would be very surprised if it would be a free service.
perhaps you'll get free access to some free games or a week free play, just to warm you up to paying for the full experience.

Re:What's Google’s business model?

[mjwx]

I predict their game streaming service will be full of ads.

And the rest of us predict that it'll be a massive failure like every other streaming games service.

Re: Real gaming PC translates to no social life

[CronoCloud]

You are confused by the fact there are two kind of game streaming.

One is people playing games and streaming their gameplay to youtube.

The other is companies, hosting game instances on high end servers and allowing people to play them remotely a la Playstation Now, and Google's recent experiment with Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

The second is what this article is referring to.

Just what the world needs...

[blahplusplus]

... more undermining of software ownership and the right to own the things we are paying for.

they better find a new name

[sad_]

not much difference between Steam and Stream.

in game advertisement ?

[DrYak]

And who owns the *in-game* ads displayed in most freemium titles ?

I actually doubt that Google will ever charge users of their streaming service directly.

They'll probably considered simply as their latest ploy to bring even more advertiment expos^H sorry... huh... "free games"... to even more gamers/eyeballs.

They'll probably recoup any cost running their service :
  - by the ad money that they already make on the games that they make more accessible this way.
  - by selling any information they can gather (who is streaming how much of what) to the most offering party.

Basically: see Chromium as another "free" product that serves the exact same purpose/is financed the exact same way.

Longevity

[burningcpu]

Alternate Article Title: Google Is Expected To Cancel Game Streaming Service Within A Year

How long till the Dear John letter?

[bodog]

Google runs the program 2.5 years, then cancels it abruptly leaving dev's holding $1200 development tablets.

Re:Deleted Posts WTF???

[sydbarrett74]

I noticed the same thing...a bunch of legit posts, but there was no 'Reply to This' link on any of them. I hit the back button and reloaded the page, and now it's nothing but a bunch of anti-Semitic troll posts.