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happydolphin on 02 July 2012
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Sal.Paradise said:
happydolphin said:

Sal.Paradise said:

 So basically, right now, they can get streaming games running at acceptable latency to the average console gamer (i.e. a bit better than 30fps console games which are the standard today). And it will only improve from there!

Thanks!! I asked the right guy. My feel is that this will enable PS3 gaming to be as good streamed as off a PS3. I'd be surprised if machines will be powerful enough to get the same "Game Pipeline" efficiency for next gen graphics.

A little misleading for some, but the more educated will know better. In other words, I expect this to be used mostly for PS3/Vita and below software in Sony's next-gen strat. It won't be viable for PS4, what is your opinion Sal?

It's definitely early days, and there are pretty big questions that need to be answered - what hardware will they release, what exactly will be streamed or not, what will the image quality be like vs internet speed - will it be a subscription service etc.

It will not replace physical releases - it's a generation too early for that. What could happen is Sony release a cheap-ass PS4 alongside the regular model, one that ONLY plays streamed games. Pay $99 upfront and then a $20 subscription every month to play the whole PS4 catalogue streamed. 

What I guess at is a full playstation-branded streaming service, across Sony phones, tvs, tablets, laptops and of course game devices. What with Gaikai recently announcing a deal to stream to Samsung Tvs, and with Sony releasing playstation mobile on HTC handsets, I think there's possibility for streaming other manufacturer's devices as well. What this means is that they can tell publishers that, instead of releasing games on a new platform (PS4 or Vita) with an install base of only a few million, they will be releasing their game for ALL streaming compatible  devices - instant install base of >100 million. 

The question of content is much harder - it will be very expensive for them to run thousands of PS3s in a cluster just to stream games to your devices,  whereas running them on PC is apparently much cheaper. For PS3 games with PC counterparts that's not an issue - they can stream the PC versions (with better-than-PS3-graphics intact!). But for PS3 only games...the Cell (what a mistake, seriously) is too hard to emulate on PC - no idea how they'll get round that. Streaming PS1 and PS2 games will be ideal, as they run at such lower resolutions and can be emulated on very cheap hardware. PS4 games....so many unkowns that I can't speculate much further. Forwards compatibility? PS4 games streamed to PS3/Vita? Who knows.

Thank you. My god this is an interesting topic indeed. Forwards compatibility, what an interesting though. Also, too bad the PS3 will be so hard to PC emulate. Has anyone succeeded to emulate it at least through software?