Game musings and news

[beatbandito]

Always-Online DRM has become a much more accepted standard since the last real attempt at a service like this. And in the meantime we've gained proprietary game streaming through Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, and probably others I don't know about that have not only been financially successful but (of course other than EA because they had to reach just a liiiiiiittle further than necessary) also been lauded by consumers as a price-efficient alternative to buying every fucking game that comes out.

Just based off a lifetime of seeing product development this doesn't seem like it's going to be the killer app, but it could be, like, the Friendster equivalent, with a user approved Myspace and commercial juggernaut Facebook to follow still. If it does totally tank though, I don't have money on always-online being the killer.

[mharr]

I've come to rely on too many Google services that were then shuttered because they didn't enjoy maintaining them. No sale. Never sale.

[Lottel]

Oddly enough this comes after Google shut down some fiber cities, right?

[Grath]

Haven't all game streaming services on offer so far failed due to the inherent drawbacks of always-on streaming as a game platform?

I suppose if anyone can overcome the restrictions, it's Google, but a lot of this is simply based on local infrastructure which is out of any developer or platform's hands.

The "internet flakes out on you" is always going to be a problem with this, but for context Buttbuttin's Creed: Odyssey only loses ~50ms of latency running on Stadia vs locally (100-166ms local vs 166-200ms on Stadia) - the only time I noticed that I wasn't playing Odyssey locally during the Project Stream beta was when I got JPG-ish artifacts in a pitch-black cave scene when I didn't have a torch out.

[Blossom]

Haven't all game streaming services on offer so far failed due to the inherent drawbacks of always-on streaming as a game platform?

I suppose if anyone can overcome the restrictions, it's Google, but a lot of this is simply based on local infrastructure which is out of any developer or platform's hands.

The "internet flakes out on you" is always going to be a problem with this, but for context Buttbuttin's Creed: Odyssey only loses ~50ms of latency running on Stadia vs locally (100-166ms local vs 166-200ms on Stadia) - the only time I noticed that I wasn't playing Odyssey locally during the Project Stream beta was when I got JPG-ish artifacts in a pitch-black cave scene when I didn't have a torch out.

Hope you aren't metered! Hope 5.6 MB/s is perfectly sustainable at all times, no neutrality issues getting in the way!

[Grath]

Hope you aren't metered! Hope 5.6 MB/s is perfectly sustainable at all times, no neutrality issues getting in the way!

I have gigabit fiber, that isn't metered, and so far haven't run into neutrality issues.

Edited to add: while there's exclusive capabilities being discussed, I expect those will be relatively niche as far as actual adoption and I'm not aware of any Epic-style douchebaggery being planned for anti-consumer exclusivity deals... So the people who can afford gaming hardware can just do that, and the people who have decent internet but just a cheapo laptop can do Stadia.

[Thad]

Haven't all game streaming services on offer so far failed due to the inherent drawbacks of always-on streaming as a game platform?

I suppose if anyone can overcome the restrictions, it's Google, but a lot of this is simply based on local infrastructure which is out of any developer or platform's hands.

I've come to rely on too many Google services that were then shuttered because they didn't enjoy maintaining them. No sale. Never sale.

Hope you aren't metered! Hope 5.6 MB/s is perfectly sustainable at all times, no neutrality issues getting in the way!

And I think those right there are thre three major hurdles.

Who's the market for this? Out the gate, the latency issues make it untenable for certain types of games. People with unmetered gigabit are very probably already in the console/gaming PC market, so this isn't for them (though I can see how somebody might use it on a secondary device). Somebody in the Ars comments said AC runs adequately (not great) at 100Mb/s, so maybe people who like to play AAA games but don't have a gaming PC budget?

Which brings us to Beat's point that perhaps this could be an also-ran and find a comfortable niche without becoming a major player, and mharr's that if it's not a success, Google could just abruptly pull the plug.

...hang on, I think I've got it: college kids in dorms. You may not have the budget for the latest console or a gaming PC, but you've almost certainly got a laptop that runs a web browser, and high-speed Internet with no metering. Guess we'll see how many people have to use this at one time before the campus network slows to a crawl.

[Blossom]

Of course, even if you think neutrality hasn't been an issue yet, this is out of the gate exponentially more data use than Netflix. You think an ISP with the ability to shutter this won't do it?

[Mongrel]

Interesting to see how that would play out in the areas where Google is trying to actually become an ISP themselves (Google Fibre).

Also, I can think of many games where an extra 50mbps would make players howl (often regardless of any impact on the ability to actually play the game, lol).

[Brantly B.]

Is there a citation for that? (EDIT: Not responding to Mongrel.) In theory this would use roughly the same amount of end-user throughput as Twitch, which is surprisingly little; you can leave Twitch on all month and probably still use less data than, say, a personal download of FFXV. We've had cloud-gaming services for years now on consoles and I think in general ISPs much prefer them to clientside app downloads.

At the end of the day though, both Sony and Microsoft have resorted to offering client-side downloads in addition to their streaming service. I don't think that's insignificant. Like I've argued before, the real roadblock is stability rather than moment-to-moment performance. A 3-second hiccup during a movie is annoying, but it's a total failure state during a game of ApeNight or whatever. There's no real difference between a 1000Mbps connection and a 10Mbps one in that regard.

The main way I think Google's offering might succeed - not that I want it to, mind, I'm well in the "break them up" camp - is if they roll the subscription fee into other services. The one question is "who is going to pay for Stadia?", and the answer is "not me" unless it gets bundled with YouTube TV or something for a nominal fee. And if it works behind a firewall. And if I can run it in inside a VM. And if there's a plugin that can randomize the telemetric data it's collecting. And... actually, you know what, just fuck off.

[Blossom]

[Brantly B.]

So no then.

[Blossom]

Oh, a citation on the 20gb/per hour? It was on screen during the GDC announcement, that's a screencap in the tweet. Here's the Telegraph commenting on it.

[Mongrel]

Former EA and Ubisoft executive [whoever] will be in charge of Google's own development division

Oh man, that's all I need to know RIGHT THERE.

[Thad]

Oh, a citation on the 20gb/per hour? It was on screen during the GDC announcement, that's a screencap in the tweet. Here's the Telegraph commenting on it.

I'm not finding much context, but I suspect that's probably for 4K at 60fps. 4K video on Netflix uses about 7GB per hour; increase the framerate from 24 to 60 and that gets you to 17.5GB. (Stadia should only increase bandwidth use linearly compared to 4K video, but presumably you were talking about the much more typical use case of 720p or 1080p video, in which case you're right to describe 4K as an exponential increase.) It'll be higher for 120fps, lower for lower resolutions and framerates.

Stadia is supposedly playable on a 25Mb connection, which maxes out at around 11 GB per hour. Which is still a lot.

Regardless, I definitely agree that ISP fuckery is inevitable. But I also have to figure that Google has already thought of that and has some plan in mind for dealing with it. Simplest thing would be to pay off ISPs to leave Stadia alone (maybe even zero-rate it), but there are other, more aggressive routes Google could take, too.

None of which changes the *other* problems with Stadia, or means it will succeed.

[Grath]

Former EA and Ubisoft executive [whoever] will be in charge of Google's own development division

Oh man, that's all I need to know RIGHT THERE.

Jade Raymond? She was involved in the first couple of Assassin's Creed games and was to some extent Patient -1 for Gamergate - she got a bunch of misogynist harassment in 2007 because Internet Assholes couldn't believe that a GIRL who is ATTRACTIVE could also be producer on games.

[Mongrel]

Oh I couldn't care less if it's a man, woman, or hermaphroditic arthropod. It's that pedigree.

The only thing which might make me think twice is if she's had nothing to do with those companies in the past few years.

[Mongrel]

[Thad]

Capcom Home Arcade is an Outrageously Priced Plug-and-Play Retro Console

230 euro for a plug-and-play console with 2 joysticks and the following games:

Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
Street Fighter 2 Turbo
1944: The Loop Master
Alien vs. Predator
Armored Warriors
Capcom Sports Club
Captain Commando
Cyberbots
Eco Fighters
Final Fight
Progear
Giga Wing
Mega Man the Power Battle
Ghouls 'N Ghosts
Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting
Strider

I'm thinking maybe "Street Fighter 2 Turbo" is supposed to be "Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo", since Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting are the same game.

(ETA: Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo.)

I assume that for that price the joysticks are probably high-quality, but for that selection of games this seems like it's going to be a pretty tough sell. Maybe they'll let you add more later?

The inclusion of AvP is exciting, at least; am I correct in thinking it's never been released outside arcades? Hopefully this means we'll be seeing it on other platforms too.

[Mazian]

You're leaving out the most important part: the entire console is shaped like a giant Capcom logo.