Google GDC Keynote Official Thread

[Frogger]

potato_hamster said:

spemanig said:

I think the dichotomy I was actually making here was unclear.

It's ridiculous to use such a simple example to point out the obvious limitations of one thing that excels in other avenues elsewhere. I could easily follow by saying "yeah, but can your laptop play games in 4K on an 60" screen?" and the point would stand. That's the point being made, not that "Everything is worse than Stadia, and PS4 proves it."

The "but it doesn't do everything, all the time" argument that you were trying to make is silly. It does more things better more of the time than any other platform out now, at least conceptually. Pointing out the small bubbles of outlier where one happens to succeed over the other is silly in this case. Yes, a game boy micro can fit into smaller pockets. Hooray, but a switch can go most places a micro can go, and it's more powerful, etc, etc.

But that wasn't my argument at all. In the best case scenario it is as good as a console. In the worst case scenario it is unusable.

In both of those scenarios my PS4 or laptop, or Switch or whatever will still be able to play whatever games I like regardless of how spotty my internet connection is. I don't have to rely on an internet connection that for the majority of the world isn't as reliable, consistent or affordable as you're making it out to be. I don't care about concept, I care about real world applications. I've seen plenty of absolutely outstanding tech demos that totally fell on their fucking face in the real world. If you need some recent examples, see Titanfall's release and claims that the game wouldn't be possible "without the power of the cloud" or better yet, check out Microsoft's claims about UWA. That shit never panned out, but the tech demos sure looked impressive!

But, hey if you want to count on google and the internet totally for your gaming experiences, that's cool man. Just don't try and dunk on anyone that points out the downsides of that. There's plenty of very valid concerns when you look beyond the presentation and get into the meat of real world applications and issues that an average user will have to contend with that they will not have to contend with on a traditional piece of gaming hardware.

But, I mean, that certainly is your argument. Your next sentence revealed just that; in the best case scenario, it's not merely as "good as a console" - it's tremendously better than a console specifically and exclusively because it is not a console. In the worst case scenario, it's just as unusable as, for random example, a PS4 in an airport, a Switch in a small pocket, or a laptop when trying to have a 4K 60" screen.

In those hyper specific scenarios, the platforms are completely unusable as well, but it would be silly to present those as cataclysmic checkmates that prove why those platforms are not viable or less viable than platforms than can do what they can't. In most scenarios, most people have access to good enough internet for that specific con to not be an issue most of the time, and everything it can do to make up for that deficiency surpasses anything any current platform can do from a fundamentally conceptual level.

It's not just that it's so convenient and instantaneous to play, but that it also has power matching and possibly surpassing the rumored specs of next generation consoles with the ability to constantly improve computationally constantly and with not so much as a software update needed on the user's end, let alone a physical or financial change. It's that it's a platform that is fundamentally un-hackable because the software and hardware is never localized or centralized. It's the possibilities that having a platform where the the client and servers are not connected via the internet the way they must be on consoles, making the standard multiplayer experience not dependent on the client with the slowest connection because both the game client and server are localized to Google's networking backbone before hitting the internet. That fundamentally changes online multiplayer latency in a way that literally cannot be replicated via physical consoles due to the very nature of consoles. The list goes exceedingly on.

I understand having a wait and see attitude from tech demos and declarations. I don't think there's a single thing MS said about those games that "wouldn't be possible without the cloud" that actually exist in those games specifically because they just aren't using the tech. Stadia is different though because it's literally only cloud tech. There isn't anything else they can use but cloud tech.

I'm only ducking your "downsides" to the same degree that I would duck someone who purports the "downsides" of, again another random example, a PS4 in an airport, a Switch in a small pocket, or a laptop when trying to play have a 4K 60" screen. I guess not being able to play a PS4 in an airport is a "valid concern," but I don't think it's one "valid" enough to discount the tremendous utility of that very same PS4 in nearly every other relevant scenario, in which cases it currently potentially excels far better than any other platform that can actually be played at an airport.

The airport needn't be the hill you choose to die on is all I'm saying.