Seems like an awesome idea and great for those who have high-speed internet connections. I for one will stick with my home consoles and disc based games. Last thing I want is to be in the middle of a game and have my internet connection drop. O.o

Unless a dropped internet connection won't cause my game to stop right then and there that is.

Meh, no thanks. A racing game is one thing - its the only type of game where lag isn't that noticable.

Fighting games: impossible.
Action games: impossible.

Playing online, against someone on the other side of the world: yeah, good luck :)

Love to see someone try to control *any* game with their controls running through a 200ms-500ms (or worse!) return lag.

Even at 30fps, 200ms is 7 frames behind. 500ms at 60fps... almost 30 frames lagged.

This might be fine for the small percentage that have massive bandwidth, low-latency connections. But for everyone else...

Imagine playing a single player game and being KICKED OFF due to network issues.

No thanks, I'll stick to a solution where there is no latency between myself and the device ;)

The local servers part is possible, assuming a large enough market exists for this at some point. Content distribution networks like Akamai already have local servers in many ISPs, but that's for a different problem (web content and video streaming which they sell to big companies with popular websites, to lighten the load on their servers).

As for the light fiber part I don't know much about it, I know they're deploying fiber in some big and dense cities but that's about it (I'm not even sure of what's the installation cost).

Just reading about this. Sounds kinda cool.

With internet service the way it is right now, there is no way this can work for the mainstream. Not everyone has the bandwidth to support this. I think despite the tech and compression they use, lag will be a big problem. Not to mention, in some other countries, this would be impossible. (Australia for example. Shoddy internet service outside of major cities)


Also, 700mb an hour adds up quick. Plus, owning a physical copy of something is much more appeasing. I'd hate to see something like this change that. I'll always favor owning a physical game that I can stick onto a shelf and admire.

Services like Steam are hugely popular though, so perhaps I'm in the minority there. I just see all of these services as less freedom, as weird as that sounds. :|

This will work well until a massive server failure/game removal controversy.

Right now, if your HD crashes or your memory stick fails, the problem is local. Imagine the same thing affecting 100k (or 1M) gamers?

That being said, it might be interesting for certain applications, if the pricing was right. But it would be a complement/supplement rather than a replacement.

Mike from Morgantown

wow this actually sounds like it could have quite a bit of potential. It would finally actually make PC a better gaming platform than the consoles if it is properly implemented. Imagine running all of the new games on a piece of shit IBM from back in the days....

The only thing about it that bugs me is that it does not sound like you actually ever own a game. You HAVE to be connected to the internet to be able to play because it is streaming off of their servers. Thus if you don't have a good enough connection (or no internet at all if there's such a thing at this point) you will not be able to play. I personally like buying a disc to play my games on but if it has to become digital eventually I would rather be able to download it.

I hope they offer the service at 1080p and do something about the frame rate issues.

there was some initiative some years ago that included cisco i don't remember now but it wanted to achieve something like this.

Anyway every time i read about DD and technologies like this i ask why people never think i want to lend my games to a friend or trade them? i want to have a physical copy of my games.

Wookaroo said: With internet service the way it is right now, there is no way this can work for the mainstream. Not everyone has the bandwidth to support this. I think despite the tech and compression they use, lag will be a big problem. Not to mention, in some other countries, this would be impossible. (Australia for example. Shoddy internet service outside of major cities) Also, 700mb an hour adds up quick. Plus, owning a physical copy of something is much more appeasing. I'd hate to see something like this change that. I'll always favor owning a physical game that I can stick onto a shelf and admire. Services like Steam are hugely popular though, so perhaps I'm in the minority there. I just see all of these services as less freedom, as weird as that sounds. :|

 I agree with you. I like having a physical copy to add to my collection. I don't really like the idea of my collection only being online. It just doesn't make my collection feel safe to show off 20 years from now.

It's one of those things that would be great in theory, but be tough to do in actuality.