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kain_kusanagi on 11 October 2012
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ganoncrotch said:
kain_kusanagi said:
Sometimes I think I must be the only person with a slow broadband connection. I can't watch high quality video streams without buffer breaks so there's no way I'd be able to play a game streaming across the internet. If Sony or MS or whatever installs a server farm across the street maybe I'd be more hopeful. But right now I have no interesting in stream gaming.

I know I'm not the only one. The US has a huge number of rural slow connections that aren't going to get upgraded any time soon. The US is just far too big to get fiber in every home at a reasonable cost.


you can't even watch a 720 youtube video without giving it some time to buffer up? because you have to remember that almost all playstation 3 games are rendered natively in that anyway, Even here in Ireland it's been possible to stream at 720 for the past couple of years, and our internet is made of potatoes and lucky charms.

Mmm, potatoes. I do love potatoes. Maybe if our internet ran on potatoes it would suck.

I can't even watch 480p without letting it buffer for 5-10 seconds. I just download anything HD and watch it later off my harddrive. It's not worth streaming HD. I quit Netflix because they upped the price, but the steam quality for me was so low it wasn't worth it.  If I want to watch a youtube video without any buffer breaks I have to set it to the lowest quality.

You have to understand that the USA is very big and it's population is very spread out. The entire island of Ireland is about the size of one of our medium sized states, the state of Indiana. Take a look at this map to see what it's like for Americans who can't get fast internet no matter what they are willing to pay: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/technology

I live in Oregon and in the less populated part. I feel lucky to have the reletively slow speeds I have because I still remember how bad dialup was. I'm happy with what I have, but there is just no way that Gaikai or Onlive will replace local hardware in the USA any time soon.