Well it is nice to have cloud versions of games that wouldn't be on the Switch, I bought half of them, I really enjoyed playing AAA games on a Switch Lite.

And also playing Ghost of Tsushima on my Steam Deck is really nice

For the hardcore gamer it's not good enough (here at least), but maybe you missed where it worked for him and where he said:

To be clear, I don’t think the technology is perfect, but I do think that it’s reached a point where it’s good enough for everyday play, provided your connection is strong enough.

5G coverage continues to get improved and you know, the USA is behind on 5g compared to Asia. It is already more feasible in parts of Asia and Europe.

2020:


2022:


Netflix grew super fast when it was launched? Really?

Netflix was started in August of 1997 in Scotts Valley, California. Its co-founder, Reed Hastings, had the idea to start the company after he was charged $40 for a late movie rental.



Netflix didn't grow much at all in the beginning, being tied to PC. The ball started rolling after it came to consoles in 2008 and internet speeds became fast enough to support video streaming to more people. Also launching the first Roku stick in 2008, 11 years after Netflix started! Netflix didn't officially come to Canada until 2010, same time Smart TVs started to become the majority of new TVs.

I get it, I was arguing against Netflix and video streaming in 2007 when video download rentals appeared on consoles. It will never take over, it can never replace the video and sound quality of Blu-ray. No extras, no subtitle options, no alternate soundtracks, terrible for movie lovers. Internet bandwidth isn't there, takes 6 hours to download a 2 hour movie in crappy quality. And I had a 20GB monthly download cap at the time.

Startup is slow, but we're reaching a major tuning point as 5G coverage continues to increase as well as fiber to the home coverage.
We're about at 2007 in the Netflix timeline when it comes to xCloud. No streaming stick yet, just been rolling out to console (available in 28 countries today) and has been available through PC.

I was talking about smartphone users using 5g playing over the cloud, I have no idea how you play but there was always be a niche.

It make no sense for the average smartphone user to adapt cloud gaming, because the only thing cloud has to offer them is better graphics. It's not worth all the issues the cloud gaming will bring them. But based on the article Svennoj linked it might not even bring better graphics. It's all cons, it cost more, will be unreliable and maybe even have worse graphics because of picture quality.

I meant their streaming service, it launched 2007. Their dvd service launched a lot earlier. And it's has nothing to do with hardcore vs casuals. When casuals tries cloud gaming on smartphones they will just close the gaming app because they will think the app is broken. And the increased speed from 5g won't help.

The world is bigger than the USA. It's going to catch on in Asia first.

Works already though a vpn (no official support yet in India)

It's not just better graphics, it's access to a lot more games you can play anywhere. The issues will be smoothed out much faster than making Steam deck casual friendly. And people put up with that to game on the go...

Digital Foundry is even changing their minds now.

From cloud gaming can never work (2011)
https://www.eurogamer.net/gdc-why-onlive-cant-possibly-work-article

to
https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2023-cloud-gaming-can-work

It's not just improvements in infrastructure and faster hardware that will make it possible. Better compression and image reconstruction techniques will reduce data needed and fill in / smooth out stutters. Predictive AI can help reduce latency and reprojection techniques from VR can further reduce any observable latency.

The gaming landscape will look a lot different in the 2030s...

Remember the good days of xbox, when the master chief was king, and when sam fisher was the new face of xbox. Good ol days..

I haven't mention latency in my posts when it relates to cloud gaming as it's not the main issue, I have tried geforce now for 6 months and tried playstation now a few time so I know what I'm talking about. It just simply providing a reliable experience and price. Note that I have fiber 250/250 mbit and 13-16ms ping to geforce now.

In the smartphone space cloud gaming simply can't compete, because smartphone gaming is free and will always provide a reliable experience when playing natively. If someone wanna go cloud here they haft to pay for the cloud service + data usage. It makes no sense for anyone to adapt cloud gaming in the smartphone space as native provides a better experience and is free.

The console space I'm betting it won't make sense simply because the price will be about equal. U haft to pay for the hardware here but the cost is low, for streaming you haft to pay for the service and maybe even a controller + streaming stick. With all the issues game streaming brings it simply won't be worth it if you can't even save money.

Now for pc it makes some minor sense for gamers to adapt cloud gaming here, that's because pc gaming is so expensive. And I said this before when Xcloud launches as a stand-alone service and flops I expect most people will agree with me.

As for the article you linked, I'm not sure you read them, they simple isn't positive even if 1 tries to be.

"With a mouse and keyboard, you can feel the difference in response - but it's subtle." This is about geforce now.

" xCloud is far from the killer app it needs to be. Image quality is still problematic, there's not enough resolution or bandwidth to replace a local experience. Latency is far more noticeable though 60fps games claw back enough response to play out quite reasonably." On xcloud.

I'm not going to convince you, time will. Yes they bring up the current negatives. It's digital foundry, the most critical out there when it comes to game performance and they went from it can never work to it's not that bad actually. The avg gamer doesn't care about subtle differences in response and xCloud will get improved. 'Quite reasonably' is all the avg consumer needs before convenience becomes the nr 1 factor. In 2008 the difference between Netflix and blu-ray quality was immense, but that didn't stop the uptake of streaming movies.

Smart phone gaming isn't free, it's rife with ads and micro transactions. Plus subscriptions have already made their way onto phones.

I see it in my kids that streaming is the future. Despite having a huge collection of games and movies, they rather watch it on Netflix in lower quality with sometimes (still) streaming issues instead of grabbing the blu-ray disc from the shelf. Why, cause they can instantly switch to something else. My oldest just got Gamepass ultimate on the Series X yesterday and all he does is download tons of stuff to try out, move on to the next game while waiting for downloads to finish. (Luckily the Series X is much faster at downloading than the ps5) 'Game hopping' is how my kids play games, growing up with Roblox is likely a contributing factor. (It actually annoys them I finish games first before moving on to the next, have you still not tried that...)

Anyway it's supported here, gonna check it out myself. Just looking up how to access xCloud.

#think so too.