Whole idea of cloud gaming is bullshit. 1080 p quality streaming requires huge bandwidth and fast internet connections and even then it cannot remove lag from the equation (not to mention wi-fi barely manages to send 720p movies to ps3).

Also someone has to pay for servers powerfull enough to play game for thousands of people at those speeds. So this would have to be financed probably by some kind of monthly fee.

At the same time $100 computer GPU can play all current games at Full HD so if they release $300-400 console in 2012 it will be easily capable of running games at Full HD resolutions.

PS. I don't have PSP yet, I already bought few games for it but decided to wait with buying hardware to E3.

@ Zlejedi

I think the lag issues will become less severe in the future.

I don't think single player 1080p high definition gaming would be much of a problem by then. (720p can locally also be upscaled to 1080p by your PS3 with lower bandwidth)

The main problems I expect with regard to online multi-player lag. But with local server centers I think there won't be much of an issue here, however if you are in Europe and want to play with people in the US, there will probably be an unfair lag for you. Maybe the option would be to create a co-ordinating global server center which tries to synchronize for the worst case scenario lag so there will not be unfair competition. Internet + device output lag should not be more than 100ms though for a fast paced game.

Personally I do believe cloud gaming has a promising future and it fits Ken's vision with regard to the PS3 and beyond. Sony has many headquarters operating globablly.

First, Mike, there is an "EDIT" button. Use that to add stuff on the previous post instead of double posting or quoting yourself. Double posting on purpose is against the rules.

Second, you are suggesting that Sony take the route of OnLive and do game streaming instead of releasing a new console? Lets consider this, shall we? The delay from the server to your machine, depending on location of the server in relation to yourself, would be at minimum about 10ms. Add on to that the delay of wireless internet to the PS3 and the minimum would be about 30ms. Then you have to factor in the delay of the controller input to the machine and the delay from the input to the action on screen which would total well over 100ms. Then you have to factor in round trip so you are looking at the VERY MINIMUM of 260-300ms, but most people would see delay of 70-80ms from the server so all in all the average to maximum delay would be 340-500ms delay from giving input and receiving the streamed action response on your screen.

By your best estimates, this infrastructure needed to have fast enough internet will not be until 2016-2020. The next generation of consoles will be out by 2013 to 2014 at the very latest, all except for the PS3 if they were to foolishly follow this idea.

Oh and one more thing, nice way of trying to make it look like internet in the US is progressing slowly and awfully compared to other countries. You do realize the US is much larger and has more rural areas than Japan by a long shot! Probably at least 30 fold larger than Japan. The speeds available in urban areas are great, and the average speed of internet in the US has actually been increasing faster than Moore's law since 1998. All it will take is some investment into getting fiber across those large open areas of the US, but that's a pretty hefty investment when not many people live there.

Multiplayer lag would be similar to today situation but you would be getting similar lag also in single player game.

As for bandwidth IIRC 1080p movie is around 8 gigs per 90-100 minutes. So if you play 2 hours per day you are hitting 250 GB per month

@ nightsurge

Oh, great my favorite guy....

We will have to wait and see, if the technology will be around by then. The PS3 is said to have a decade lifecycle, so the possibilities should be clear before its discontinued (if it needs to be at that point).

Something I wrote a couple of years before the PS3 launched:

"If it's an online or networked game it would be possible to use the concept of distributed processing of data and objects across a network of connected systems. For instance a single PS3 may do the AI of just a few characters, a remote games server collects the data from thousands of PS3s (many thousands of AI characters) decisions, etc."

I would like Sony to explore such potential as well.

If the PS3 mainly has to decode and upscale, it could do stuff like that in the background regarding some kind of modern RPG. Or it could just do some Folding@Home.

@ Zlejedi

It could actually become much cheaper for publishers. Internet bandwidth is already cheap and gets cheaper for internet providers once they have the needed equipment and infrastructure. They don't drop the pricing unless they have to, as it's always nice to have more profits.

You're cutting out the middleman, media replication, people won't play 24/7 so once someone logs off another logs on using the same resources, etc.