By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
goopy20 on 29 February 2020
Edit Thread
Conina said:
Leynos said:
When games become all cloud and publishers can take them down anytime they want and have full control. There is no craft anymore. It's just disposable marketable digital playgrounds designed purely around making money by nickel and diming. People will not appreciate a craft anymore esp as there will be none, but even for the few that are a work of craftsmanship, it won't matter. Just treat it as something disposable. Nothing will be valued anymore. I will not part take in that "future"

So most developers will stop making good games in a streaming future? Why would they?

There will still be competition between the developers, publishers and platform owners to make better games than the competitors.

Has the quality of TV-shows gone down since Netflix and Amazon entered the scene? I don't think so... I'd even say that many Netflix original series and Amazon original series are some of the best shows and even don't have to hide behind many good/great movies.

People also don't get mindwiped... if they appreciate the craft of great games now, they will also appreciate it in the future. They'll expect new good games and if they don't get them, they can cancel their subscriptions and return to thousands of old games. Every streaming platform will try to keep their subscribers happy so they don't cancel the subscription. They could even deliver gaming experiences via streaming which simply aren't possible on the fastest home console or gaming PC.

In its current state game streaming ain't for me, because the games look and play better on local hardware than on Stadia, GeForce Now, PSNow, xCloud and Shadow. On these you currently only get the processing power of a middle-class PC / PS4 Pro / Xbox One X at best... combined with higher input lag and streaming artifacts the quality is worse than the local options.

But this could change in the future when processing power in computing centers gets cheaper and cheaper compared to the "island solutions" in millions of homes. And suddenly you can get the processing power of 10 or 20 PS5s / XSX combined... instead of playing f.e. the most demanding PS5/XSX in 1080p 30 fps with medium raytracing settings on local hardware, the streaming option would render it in native 4K / 60 fps with much higher raytracing precision and higher level of detail and better effects. Of course the 4K-stream would lose a bit quality due to compression, but it would still look a lot better than the locally rendered version; 60 fps + lag could also be a smoother experience than 30 fps locally rendered.

That does actually sound awesome. I think Cloud gaming will only become a thing when it can provides a better experience than what would be possible on dedicated hardware.