Google Stadia: Youtube for video games?
March 20, 2019 8:30 AM Subscribe
Google has announced Stadia, its platform for streaming video games. It's designed to instantly run demanding games on (and seamlessly between) ordinary PCs and mobile devices. As always, Digital Foundry gives you the performance details.
It is interesting how the game controller does not actually communicate with the device displaying the game; the controller makes its own separate connection to Stadia via wifi. So when the user presses a button on the controller, it sends that signal directly to Google's servers, where the input is handled, then the user sees the result of the input in the video feed. This reduces lag by eliminating any bottleneck on the device, and skipping the extra connection.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:42 AM on March 20, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:42 AM on March 20, 2019 [7 favorites]
The idea has been around for a while, and maybe google can find a way to make it work. I'm a bit dubious it'll really work so well on the twitchier games, but it's nifty to see someone giving it another go.
We've had attempts at streaming video game services before, the appeal of not having to bother owning a console or PC, not having to worry about upgrades, or performance, etc is certainly one that'd appeal to a number of gamers. But I'm still curious how they intend to deal with latency.
I mean, sometimes entirely one way streams like Netflix go wonky and all pixelated because the connection isn't quite good enough, or stutters for a moment, or what have you. Trying to play a shooter or other game that depends on fast reaction seems... difficult... in such an environment.
posted by sotonohito at 8:49 AM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
We've had attempts at streaming video game services before, the appeal of not having to bother owning a console or PC, not having to worry about upgrades, or performance, etc is certainly one that'd appeal to a number of gamers. But I'm still curious how they intend to deal with latency.
I mean, sometimes entirely one way streams like Netflix go wonky and all pixelated because the connection isn't quite good enough, or stutters for a moment, or what have you. Trying to play a shooter or other game that depends on fast reaction seems... difficult... in such an environment.
posted by sotonohito at 8:49 AM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
> So when the user presses a button on the controller, it sends that signal directly to Google's servers, where the input is handled, then the user sees the result of the input in the video feed. This reduces lag by eliminating any bottleneck on the device, and skipping the extra connection.
The thing about lag is that it's subjective. If the user perceives no lag then the amount of actual lag possibly doesn't matter at all. As I understand it, a real-time videogame will typically behave as if the user's input was instantaneous so that the perception of lag is minimal. When you push a button, a new grenade spawns instantly on your screen, rendered locally, before the server knows anything has happened. The game client and server will then do all kinds of insane tricks to smooth over the disagreement between what was shown to the user and what actually takes place on the server. Lag can be hidden in all kinds of places. It cannot be removed.
Forcing the controller to send a request all the way to Google and then Google to send a response all the way back to the player's console before anything new can be rendered may reduce lag a little, but it is the absolute worst way to actually deal with it. It "hides" it front and centre, in the place where players are most able to feel its effects, eliminating developers' primary tool for actually hiding it.
So, if that is how Stadia actually works, I have some misgivings...
posted by qntm at 8:56 AM on March 20, 2019 [14 favorites]
The thing about lag is that it's subjective. If the user perceives no lag then the amount of actual lag possibly doesn't matter at all. As I understand it, a real-time videogame will typically behave as if the user's input was instantaneous so that the perception of lag is minimal. When you push a button, a new grenade spawns instantly on your screen, rendered locally, before the server knows anything has happened. The game client and server will then do all kinds of insane tricks to smooth over the disagreement between what was shown to the user and what actually takes place on the server. Lag can be hidden in all kinds of places. It cannot be removed.
Forcing the controller to send a request all the way to Google and then Google to send a response all the way back to the player's console before anything new can be rendered may reduce lag a little, but it is the absolute worst way to actually deal with it. It "hides" it front and centre, in the place where players are most able to feel its effects, eliminating developers' primary tool for actually hiding it.
So, if that is how Stadia actually works, I have some misgivings...
posted by qntm at 8:56 AM on March 20, 2019 [14 favorites]
From the Kotaku article: "A Google PR rep tells Kotaku that Google’s Project Stream was able to provide 1080p, 60fps gameplay for users with 25 megabits per second connections. “When Stadia launches later this year, we expect to be able to deliver 4k 60 fps at approximately the same bandwidth requirements,” they said. "
back of the napkin says this is ~ 3.2 GB/s; this works out to a bit less than 90 hours before I reach Comcast's "unlimited plan" cap of 1 terabyte/month. That's a bit over 3 days of gaming for my family before Comcast gets annoyed. Assuming they do manage to get 4k in the same amount of bandwidth, that would give me be approximately 14 days of gaming...
posted by boo_radley at 8:56 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
back of the napkin says this is ~ 3.2 GB/s; this works out to a bit less than 90 hours before I reach Comcast's "unlimited plan" cap of 1 terabyte/month. That's a bit over 3 days of gaming for my family before Comcast gets annoyed. Assuming they do manage to get 4k in the same amount of bandwidth, that would give me be approximately 14 days of gaming...
posted by boo_radley at 8:56 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
25 mbps = 3.125 MB/s.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:03 AM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 9:03 AM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
The idea has been around for a while, and maybe google can find a way to make it work. I'm a bit dubious it'll really work so well on the twitchier games, but it's nifty to see someone giving it another go.
Indeed, I'm not holding my breath. It's all about that latency and lag/input. Fighting games will also make or break this.
posted by Fizz at 9:05 AM on March 20, 2019
Indeed, I'm not holding my breath. It's all about that latency and lag/input. Fighting games will also make or break this.
posted by Fizz at 9:05 AM on March 20, 2019
I can’t imagine how it could be worse than Nintendo’s current (peer to peer) online play and that’s enjoyed by many people (though I find it inexplicable myself).
I bet a lot of people without the disposable income for pc parts will use this service as long as it is within a certain threshold of crapiness to play fortnite or whatever.
posted by vocivi at 9:08 AM on March 20, 2019
I bet a lot of people without the disposable income for pc parts will use this service as long as it is within a certain threshold of crapiness to play fortnite or whatever.
posted by vocivi at 9:08 AM on March 20, 2019
A friend of mine in Chicago has been in the beta for this and sums it up as: if you are not playing, right now, on a cutting-edge gaming system with careful component choices and strongly-held opinions regarding monitor specs then you will probably be fine with the service. If you are playing on a computer that's a few years old you will definitely be fine with the service, for the purposes of Assassin's Creed types of games (or less). He made no statement regarding tightly-timed multiplayer, notably.
...then again, Chicago is a fiber nexus so god only knows how awesome his latency is.
...but then again, again, Google probably has more distributed server infrastructure than any other organization on the planet, so god only knows why *my* latency could potentially be.
posted by aramaic at 9:18 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
...then again, Chicago is a fiber nexus so god only knows how awesome his latency is.
...but then again, again, Google probably has more distributed server infrastructure than any other organization on the planet, so god only knows why *my* latency could potentially be.
posted by aramaic at 9:18 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
As someone who prefers physical media for archival, library, and other convenient purposes, the implications for Stadia can be pretty dark. Not so much that games are "accidentally deleted" and lost forever, but simply that you don't have control over your own access to them.
Internet connection goes out? So does the game, despite whether it was just a single player campaign or how central online content is to the gameplay. The cynic in me (which is all of me, really) is also concerned about the next-level griefing that will be possible.
"Your access to [Game] has been disabled due to customer complaints suggesting hacking behavior."
"But... I'm just really good at this game and people are sore losers?"
"Doesn't matter. We calculated the loss of one decent subscriber being less than the loss of fifty horrible subscribers because you all 'engage' with the content to a similar degree."
~OR~
"Your access to [Game] has been disabled due to customer complaints."
"This is my first time even playing this game!"
"Doesn't matter. Some users found out you were a Girl on the Internet and brigaded your account in this new form of harassment that Google will never be arsed to deal with meaningfully."
~OR EVEN~
"Your access to [Game] has been disabled because we heard you say 'Fuck Gmail' on your controller's microphone."
"Well, fuck you, too!"
"We have contacted and dispatched a local police unit to your household. Thank you for using Stadia, and have a nice day! :)"
And let's not even get into how much data is required to stream a 4K game at 60fps (hint: it's a lot more than streaming a 4K TV show at 60fps) and whether people unaware of their data caps will immediately crash into the ceiling before they even realize it. There are a lot of details that still need to be provided, but maybe we'll hear more about this at E3 or something.
TL;DR: This is great but also terrifying, especially in the hands of "don't be evil" Google that may be too big to see or care about the potential blind spots.
posted by Arson Lupine at 9:25 AM on March 20, 2019 [23 favorites]
Internet connection goes out? So does the game, despite whether it was just a single player campaign or how central online content is to the gameplay. The cynic in me (which is all of me, really) is also concerned about the next-level griefing that will be possible.
"Your access to [Game] has been disabled due to customer complaints suggesting hacking behavior."
"But... I'm just really good at this game and people are sore losers?"
"Doesn't matter. We calculated the loss of one decent subscriber being less than the loss of fifty horrible subscribers because you all 'engage' with the content to a similar degree."
~OR~
"Your access to [Game] has been disabled due to customer complaints."
"This is my first time even playing this game!"
"Doesn't matter. Some users found out you were a Girl on the Internet and brigaded your account in this new form of harassment that Google will never be arsed to deal with meaningfully."
~OR EVEN~
"Your access to [Game] has been disabled because we heard you say 'Fuck Gmail' on your controller's microphone."
"Well, fuck you, too!"
"We have contacted and dispatched a local police unit to your household. Thank you for using Stadia, and have a nice day! :)"
And let's not even get into how much data is required to stream a 4K game at 60fps (hint: it's a lot more than streaming a 4K TV show at 60fps) and whether people unaware of their data caps will immediately crash into the ceiling before they even realize it. There are a lot of details that still need to be provided, but maybe we'll hear more about this at E3 or something.
TL;DR: This is great but also terrifying, especially in the hands of "
posted by Arson Lupine at 9:25 AM on March 20, 2019 [23 favorites]
This is awful because the way I enjoy games is, single player, with the option to cheat (e.g., by savefile hacking, memory hacking, asset modification, etc). this is getting harder and harder, and a service like this just breaks it. barf.
As for the idea that this will glitch out like a netflix stream when your connection burps: it's actually much worse. When working properly, non-live streaming video has *AT LEAST* seconds of video buffered on your computer in the normal case, meaning that there's plenty of time to see that you're falling behind and transparently switch to a lower bitrate. But when your goal is to get latency as low as possible, that also means you can't buffer ahead like this; so you'll be much more likely to see glitched frames anytime there's competing traffic on your internet connection.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 9:25 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
As for the idea that this will glitch out like a netflix stream when your connection burps: it's actually much worse. When working properly, non-live streaming video has *AT LEAST* seconds of video buffered on your computer in the normal case, meaning that there's plenty of time to see that you're falling behind and transparently switch to a lower bitrate. But when your goal is to get latency as low as possible, that also means you can't buffer ahead like this; so you'll be much more likely to see glitched frames anytime there's competing traffic on your internet connection.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 9:25 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I signed up for the beta a month or two ago and the 2-3 minutes (not a gamer) of curiosity it seemed like the latency of going stabby stabby would be sufficient on a regular (comcast) cable hookup. There must be some pretty clever texture buffering/caching going on but the net is just really fast and with "cloud" corporate service using mind boggling network resources there will be more areas where a bit of extra bandwidth will be marginally low cost for applications that recently seemed to need specialize local equipment.
The data centers are looking more like the vast halls from movies like the Matrix, I expect amazon and google measure not by the thousands of servers but by the acre.
posted by sammyo at 9:26 AM on March 20, 2019
The data centers are looking more like the vast halls from movies like the Matrix, I expect amazon and google measure not by the thousands of servers but by the acre.
posted by sammyo at 9:26 AM on March 20, 2019
I hate how the gaming industry has slowly forced games as services/subscriptions into the mainstream. Owning a game is going to be a thing of the past very shortly, so too physical media.
*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 9:29 AM on March 20, 2019 [9 favorites]
*sighs*
posted by Fizz at 9:29 AM on March 20, 2019 [9 favorites]
back of the napkin says [1080p, 60fps] is ~ 3.2 GB/s
I think Google is saying you need a 25 Mb/s connection as a sort of handwavey way of saying "you need a really good connection", not that it will actually take 25 Mb constantly. A 1080p, 60fps video stream typically weighs in at around 12-15 Mb/s; not trivial, but quite a bit less. And video games tend to compress better than regular camera video. It would not surprise me if they can get the video stream down to 10 Mb/s.
I suspect rather strongly that the latency of people's connections will be a bigger issue than bandwidth. But since many people don't have any idea what the latency of their connection is, and it tends to be an unstable value prone to change, Google isn't really putting a number out there.
Though, right now I'm getting roundtrip pings to Google (presumably redirected via anycast to their closest datacenter) between 6.8-8.5 ms, avg of 7.9 ms. That's impressively fast, and I don't pay much for my connection. If we assume that most games are playable with an input lag of 50 ms (true for most games; rhythm games are worst-case and might suffer, though), they would have a time budget of only ~40 ms to process the input and serve up the video result. That strikes me as pretty challenging, although doable with enough dedicated hardware and optimization.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:29 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think Google is saying you need a 25 Mb/s connection as a sort of handwavey way of saying "you need a really good connection", not that it will actually take 25 Mb constantly. A 1080p, 60fps video stream typically weighs in at around 12-15 Mb/s; not trivial, but quite a bit less. And video games tend to compress better than regular camera video. It would not surprise me if they can get the video stream down to 10 Mb/s.
I suspect rather strongly that the latency of people's connections will be a bigger issue than bandwidth. But since many people don't have any idea what the latency of their connection is, and it tends to be an unstable value prone to change, Google isn't really putting a number out there.
Though, right now I'm getting roundtrip pings to Google (presumably redirected via anycast to their closest datacenter) between 6.8-8.5 ms, avg of 7.9 ms. That's impressively fast, and I don't pay much for my connection. If we assume that most games are playable with an input lag of 50 ms (true for most games; rhythm games are worst-case and might suffer, though), they would have a time budget of only ~40 ms to process the input and serve up the video result. That strikes me as pretty challenging, although doable with enough dedicated hardware and optimization.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:29 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Fizz: "I hate how the gaming industry has slowly forced games as services/subscriptions into the mainstream. Owning a game is going to be a thing of the past very shortly, so too physical media.
*sighs*"
On the other hand, I've owned disks of old games and not been able to get them to play on newer hardware and had to go buy new "remastered" versions at GOG or Steam to be able to play again.
posted by octothorpe at 9:47 AM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
*sighs*"
On the other hand, I've owned disks of old games and not been able to get them to play on newer hardware and had to go buy new "remastered" versions at GOG or Steam to be able to play again.
posted by octothorpe at 9:47 AM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'm cautiously optimistic. The interesting thing about this is the business model. Now instead of a $1000-$2000 Gaming PC plus $60 per game, you can play a game on a free / cheap device with a monthly rental fee. I'm really surprised Valve hasn't tried to do this already. They even have the pieces with the failed Steam Link product, but not the cloud service.
There's more game streaming services than you might think. Sony's PS Now is a big one, which was actually based on a foundation from the 2005-era PC streaming service OnLive. Microsoft has jumped in too, and there's a bunch of small PC services like Shadow. Also the Parsec software which lets you set up your own little cloud service for your own games using AWS systems.
Latency is not a huge issue for a whole lot of games. Assassin's Creed: Origins is a perfect example. It won't feel as good with 80ms of latency, but it's totally playable. Also as Carmack says "Many people play games on TVs with so much processing lag that the pixels might as well have been coming from a datacenter". Cloud service + TV in game mode may actually be faster than local computer + TV in shit mode. Of course local + game mode is going to be best, but I suspect a whole lot of gamers are not having that experience right now.
posted by Nelson at 9:49 AM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
There's more game streaming services than you might think. Sony's PS Now is a big one, which was actually based on a foundation from the 2005-era PC streaming service OnLive. Microsoft has jumped in too, and there's a bunch of small PC services like Shadow. Also the Parsec software which lets you set up your own little cloud service for your own games using AWS systems.
Latency is not a huge issue for a whole lot of games. Assassin's Creed: Origins is a perfect example. It won't feel as good with 80ms of latency, but it's totally playable. Also as Carmack says "Many people play games on TVs with so much processing lag that the pixels might as well have been coming from a datacenter". Cloud service + TV in game mode may actually be faster than local computer + TV in shit mode. Of course local + game mode is going to be best, but I suspect a whole lot of gamers are not having that experience right now.
posted by Nelson at 9:49 AM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
$60 per game, you can play a game on a free / cheap device with a monthly rental fee.
And how will this effect the makers of games and how they are paid? Or will this be another way for the Big Tech companies to make money off of other people's creativity with no money going to the real creators?
posted by terrapin at 10:00 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
And how will this effect the makers of games and how they are paid? Or will this be another way for the Big Tech companies to make money off of other people's creativity with no money going to the real creators?
posted by terrapin at 10:00 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Hello to everyone visiting from the cancellation announcement MetaFilter thread!
posted by ODiV at 10:04 AM on March 20, 2019 [32 favorites]
posted by ODiV at 10:04 AM on March 20, 2019 [32 favorites]
It wouldn't surprise my if Google is partnering with studios to create AAA exclusives where lag doesn't matter that much because of smart design decisions. It would give them some breathing room while they improve their network to decrease latency and data transfers.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:04 AM on March 20, 2019
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:04 AM on March 20, 2019
Hands up games developers if you're wishing right now that you had tied your business model to Google+
posted by straight at 10:07 AM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by straight at 10:07 AM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'd much rather see this for applications that I use infrequently but require a huge amount of resources and installation time. Let me stream Solidworks or some nice video editing software. Games seem like a much harder problem.
posted by phooky at 10:10 AM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by phooky at 10:10 AM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
From PC Gamer:
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:23 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Google Stadia: 166msI imagine the dedicated controller is about reducing latency, as it can negotiate a fast pipe with the Google server without USB/OS overhead. Games will have to be tweaked to handle sloppy control. But games are becoming less about timing platform jumps and more about hanging out eating cornbread at sunset with your horse...
Google Project Stream: 179ms
PC @ 30fps: 112ms
PC @ 60fps: 79ms
Xbox One X: 145ms
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:23 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Is this going to be your standard MPEG4/x264/VP9 video compression? Or is there some secret sauce to represent video game geometry and interpolate frames in 3D?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:25 AM on March 20, 2019
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:25 AM on March 20, 2019
What's exciting to me is, assuming the business model makes sense, this opens up the opportunity for game like experiences that aren't your standard GAME. Even as ubiquitous as gaming is today there's really two options: clunky browser/phone games that almost anyone can play with the tech they already have, or spending in the order of $300 (minimum) beforehand to get a dedicated gaming device and then using what, for even the simplest of stores, is still a major barrier to entry.
Instead you have "use your browser, here's a game, if you like it spend a little bit more for a controller, a dongle to put it on your tv (if that's not built in already)" Suddenly all those cute little interactive browser experiences can be much more fleshed out, they don't have to be Games and full of Content and Things To Shoot. And there's no question there's an interest there.
posted by aspo at 10:35 AM on March 20, 2019
Instead you have "use your browser, here's a game, if you like it spend a little bit more for a controller, a dongle to put it on your tv (if that's not built in already)" Suddenly all those cute little interactive browser experiences can be much more fleshed out, they don't have to be Games and full of Content and Things To Shoot. And there's no question there's an interest there.
posted by aspo at 10:35 AM on March 20, 2019
I don't think Google has said exactly how they are handling the video; if you can control both ends of the connection, though, there's no reason why you can't use a custom codec. And they effectively do that, because the "display" side of Stadia is Chrome.
Back in the primordial era of the Internet, there used to be specialized codecs for animation, based on the idea that animation tends to have less variance in the signal than camera video, but also tends to have a lot of hard edges and stuff that codecs made for video don't handle well. (It's analogous to the difference between GIF and JPEG.) I haven't seen specialized codecs like that in a while, presumably because hardware MPEG decoders became so widespread, and the benefits weren't enough to justify the fragmentation.
It may be the case though, that modern codecs like AV1 are flexible enough to handle animation/games without resorting to a different codec. And Google is heavily involved in the standardization of AV1, via the WebM project. So it wouldn't surprise me if that's what it'll use.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:44 AM on March 20, 2019
Back in the primordial era of the Internet, there used to be specialized codecs for animation, based on the idea that animation tends to have less variance in the signal than camera video, but also tends to have a lot of hard edges and stuff that codecs made for video don't handle well. (It's analogous to the difference between GIF and JPEG.) I haven't seen specialized codecs like that in a while, presumably because hardware MPEG decoders became so widespread, and the benefits weren't enough to justify the fragmentation.
It may be the case though, that modern codecs like AV1 are flexible enough to handle animation/games without resorting to a different codec. And Google is heavily involved in the standardization of AV1, via the WebM project. So it wouldn't surprise me if that's what it'll use.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:44 AM on March 20, 2019
Kattullus: my initial reaction is that a whole generation of computer games will be accidentally deleted some day in 2031 and lost forever.
I mean, judging from the Google Cemetary, I'd wager that it'll likely be deliberate, not accidental. And that it'll be around 2024, not 2031.
posted by mhum at 10:47 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
I mean, judging from the Google Cemetary, I'd wager that it'll likely be deliberate, not accidental. And that it'll be around 2024, not 2031.
posted by mhum at 10:47 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
The downside of a custom video codec is it won't be (easily) hardware accelerated.
how will this effect the makers of games and how they are paid?
Important question, it'd be fascinating to know what deal Ubisoft cut with AC:Origins. Right now I imagine the game publishers have a lot of leverage, since they hold the copyright and licensing rights and Google needs content. There's absolutely a risk that if this service takes off and does well Google develops monopoly power and pricing. But we've survived that on PCs (Valve's 30% cut) and iPhones (Apple's 30% cut). I also have to think a subscription model is going to be better for game developers than the current sale model.
And of course the whole game industry's financials have changed with the increasing growth of free-to-play models and various in-game purchases. Presumably Google will demand a cut of that revenue, just like Apple does, but who knows.
(To join in the pile-on about Google cancelling things, I'm always reminded of Google Lively as one of Google's last game-like forays. It lasted mere weeks before geting the axe.)
posted by Nelson at 10:50 AM on March 20, 2019
how will this effect the makers of games and how they are paid?
Important question, it'd be fascinating to know what deal Ubisoft cut with AC:Origins. Right now I imagine the game publishers have a lot of leverage, since they hold the copyright and licensing rights and Google needs content. There's absolutely a risk that if this service takes off and does well Google develops monopoly power and pricing. But we've survived that on PCs (Valve's 30% cut) and iPhones (Apple's 30% cut). I also have to think a subscription model is going to be better for game developers than the current sale model.
And of course the whole game industry's financials have changed with the increasing growth of free-to-play models and various in-game purchases. Presumably Google will demand a cut of that revenue, just like Apple does, but who knows.
(To join in the pile-on about Google cancelling things, I'm always reminded of Google Lively as one of Google's last game-like forays. It lasted mere weeks before geting the axe.)
posted by Nelson at 10:50 AM on March 20, 2019
Speaking as a game industry person, I am behind this if the business model benefits game developers, such as opening revenue streams for older games/creators.
Streaming worked out so, so well for music n' stuff, tho', I have my doubts...
posted by BigBrooklyn at 11:10 AM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
Streaming worked out so, so well for music n' stuff, tho', I have my doubts...
posted by BigBrooklyn at 11:10 AM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
As someone who doesn't own a console but a couple times a year is interested in trying out a new game I run across, this is appealing (provided I can join for a month at a time, say) but I'm concerned about creator compensation. Is Google going to go with a Spotify-like model?
posted by gwint at 11:12 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by gwint at 11:12 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
This will work great for AAA content providers with unique and desired IP, and be shit for everyone else with more or less interchangeable games except for the 0.1% of unpredictable lightning strike successes. Like every other game platform where a glut of content drives prices to the bottom.
I guess it's nice, for Google, that Google can rake off a portion of player fees that they wouldn't otherwise be able to seek rent on. So, golf clap for them. And then two middle fingers up.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:30 AM on March 20, 2019
I guess it's nice, for Google, that Google can rake off a portion of player fees that they wouldn't otherwise be able to seek rent on. So, golf clap for them. And then two middle fingers up.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:30 AM on March 20, 2019
An often under-considered aspect of cloud gaming platforms is, what do you do about cheaters? A lot of multi-player online games use hardware bans to lock out known cheaters, which are somewhat amusingly not that hard to overcome. However, overcoming the ban requires knowing how and also access to make system level changes. Consequently, what happens a lot is:
(1) PersonA uses a cloud gaming platform to play with cheats
(2) PersonA gets caught and hardware banned
(3) PersonB else tries to use cloud gaming platform to play legitimately
(4) PersonB gets banned for accessing their account using hardware associated with cheating
I'm not gonna watch the videos right now and I didn't see it in the text provided, but are they going to address this in any meaningful way?
posted by tocts at 11:50 AM on March 20, 2019
(1) PersonA uses a cloud gaming platform to play with cheats
(2) PersonA gets caught and hardware banned
(3) PersonB else tries to use cloud gaming platform to play legitimately
(4) PersonB gets banned for accessing their account using hardware associated with cheating
I'm not gonna watch the videos right now and I didn't see it in the text provided, but are they going to address this in any meaningful way?
posted by tocts at 11:50 AM on March 20, 2019
I have a lot of hatred for this idea but I'm having trouble articulating it so I'll just say that I really hate how, in an era of astoundingly cheap and empowering personal computing, people are willing to instead just hand everything over to the datacenters of giant corporations for a little bit of convenience.
Also, in terms of experience, this seems no better than a Steam account or recent console but without the ability to keep working during a network brownout.
posted by suetanvil at 12:03 PM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
Also, in terms of experience, this seems no better than a Steam account or recent console but without the ability to keep working during a network brownout.
posted by suetanvil at 12:03 PM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
In that case I think PersonA has control over the cloud gaming platform in order to cheat on another service.
In this case the cloud gaming platform is the gaming service itself and PersonA can't use cheats because they don't have the appropriate access. And even if they do manage to cheat the gaming service isn't going to ban everyone.
I would assume that cheating would go down on this type of service since people have little to no access to what we would consider the "client". I guess we'll have to see.
posted by ODiV at 12:04 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
In this case the cloud gaming platform is the gaming service itself and PersonA can't use cheats because they don't have the appropriate access. And even if they do manage to cheat the gaming service isn't going to ban everyone.
I would assume that cheating would go down on this type of service since people have little to no access to what we would consider the "client". I guess we'll have to see.
posted by ODiV at 12:04 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'm not gonna watch the videos right now and I didn't see it in the text provided, but are they going to address this in any meaningful way?
Streaming content will make cheating in this way much harder, if not impossible. Any other anti-cheat mitigations will be likely handled by Google (its their network) or on the publisher's end if new methods of anti-cheat account mgmt/customer support are needed. Regardless, i don't think your scenario will be a thing.
posted by BigBrooklyn at 12:04 PM on March 20, 2019
Streaming content will make cheating in this way much harder, if not impossible. Any other anti-cheat mitigations will be likely handled by Google (its their network) or on the publisher's end if new methods of anti-cheat account mgmt/customer support are needed. Regardless, i don't think your scenario will be a thing.
posted by BigBrooklyn at 12:04 PM on March 20, 2019
in an era of astoundingly cheap and empowering personal computing, people are willing to instead just hand everything over to the datacenters of giant corporations for a little bit of convenience.
I have been waiting so long for a reasonably price video card. Right now I'm using a hand-me-down that's like 7 years old.
I'm in Northern Canada so I'm not going to be using a streaming service like this any time soon, but you're damn right that I'd be tempted.
posted by ODiV at 12:07 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
I have been waiting so long for a reasonably price video card. Right now I'm using a hand-me-down that's like 7 years old.
I'm in Northern Canada so I'm not going to be using a streaming service like this any time soon, but you're damn right that I'd be tempted.
posted by ODiV at 12:07 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
The only benefit of this I see is not having to download 15 gigabytes of data over a slow and unreliable internet connection before I can play... oops, that's a problem.
I think I'm used to living with a much worse, more random, slower internet than Google is used to. The idea that the latency of a Bluetooth connection to a computer or console is significant in the face of that just seems absurd, like they're repainting the stripes on a road to make it smoother instead of filling in the potholes.
posted by Foosnark at 12:10 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think I'm used to living with a much worse, more random, slower internet than Google is used to. The idea that the latency of a Bluetooth connection to a computer or console is significant in the face of that just seems absurd, like they're repainting the stripes on a road to make it smoother instead of filling in the potholes.
posted by Foosnark at 12:10 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I bask in the wonder of a breathtaking new platform for ad delivery.
posted by tclark at 12:13 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by tclark at 12:13 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
It could also be some deep cover hidden google division built out a ginormous tensorflow datacenter and the business model for big data is not as big as anticipated and it's either loose big or hey what about them gamers...
posted by sammyo at 12:16 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 12:16 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I mean it's also a way to get a mic into any households they might have missed so far.
posted by ODiV at 12:21 PM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by ODiV at 12:21 PM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
Blizzard have already banned cloud gaming services, and it's easy to see how IP or hardware bans could lead to a provider being banned altogether even where that wasn't the intent. Harder to see that happening with a sufficiently big provider (like Google) with recognisable hardware or IP ranges (like Google), but seems totally plausible for smaller services that might appear as just another end user to automated systems and servers.
posted by Dysk at 12:25 PM on March 20, 2019
posted by Dysk at 12:25 PM on March 20, 2019
I mean it's also a way to get a mic into any households they might have missed so far.
DING! We have a winner.
posted by terrapin at 12:30 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
DING! We have a winner.
posted by terrapin at 12:30 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I played Asassin's Creed for hours and I thought it was fantastic. The free copy they gave me to download after the testing doesn't even work because my hardware is too old. And just for the record, at least with AAA games, you don't own the actual game when you purchase it from GameStop or download it from Steam. You own a license to use it.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:32 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Brocktoon at 12:32 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
DING! We have a winner.
Between Android and Chrome, how many houses *don't* have a Google entry point? Probably not very many.
posted by Autumnheart at 12:47 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Between Android and Chrome, how many houses *don't* have a Google entry point? Probably not very many.
posted by Autumnheart at 12:47 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
From the industry perspective, there's a lot more flexibility. You won't have to optimize for end-user GPUs and a million different configurations, you optimize for data centers. Maybe some games (or even levels) can run on earlier-generation GPUs, depending on if running on mobile/desktop/4K. Demos and try-before-you-buy and other business models become easier to roll out. Etc.
Logging on to your game from different devices might be a good selling point too. Also, keep in mind that the early adopters will probably not be in the U.S. -- they'll be in countries which have fast internet.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:12 PM on March 20, 2019
Logging on to your game from different devices might be a good selling point too. Also, keep in mind that the early adopters will probably not be in the U.S. -- they'll be in countries which have fast internet.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:12 PM on March 20, 2019
What is the base cost per hour going to be? If it's less than $1, then I think I will be playing a lot of a ""game"" called pytorch. More seriously, I wonder if this whole gaming thing isn't just a way to load balance against deep learning.
posted by Pyry at 1:15 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Pyry at 1:15 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've been seeing what looks to be a cropped screencap saying Stadia gameplay will eat ~20GB/hr but I can't tell what it's from or if it's legit.
Also as somebody who loves PC gaming for its deep back catalogue and a level of control over the machine that permits mods and codes, the ongoing effort to turn PC gaming into console gaming is, um, unwelcome.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:14 PM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
Also as somebody who loves PC gaming for its deep back catalogue and a level of control over the machine that permits mods and codes, the ongoing effort to turn PC gaming into console gaming is, um, unwelcome.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:14 PM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
I imagine this is more of a challenge to console gaming than PC gaming. Initially they'll probably have to lean more on PC games due to Xbox/PS rights issues, but once they can compete more directly with Microsoft and Sony it will be a way to play games in your living room without having to buy a $300 console. PC gaming has been somewhat niche for a while now (at least in US/EU), I can't really see what about Stadia would appeal to people on PC who haven't already turned towards mobile or console gaming.
posted by parallellines at 2:41 PM on March 20, 2019
posted by parallellines at 2:41 PM on March 20, 2019
What I want to know is how is google planning to make money off of this?
It does not seem to fit their traditional business model of providing free services and collecting information on the users to sell to advertisers. I can kind of see them making some money by selling targeted ads during loading screens and such, but that does not seem sufficient to fund this much infrastructure.
Are they actually planning to make money of subscription fees? Google's customer service is nonexistent and they treat their users like cattle. They get away with it because again the services are free and the users are not the customers. But once you start selling something that dynamic changes. And gamers can get a bit... emotional lets say.
What am I missing?
posted by iamnotangry at 2:54 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
It does not seem to fit their traditional business model of providing free services and collecting information on the users to sell to advertisers. I can kind of see them making some money by selling targeted ads during loading screens and such, but that does not seem sufficient to fund this much infrastructure.
Are they actually planning to make money of subscription fees? Google's customer service is nonexistent and they treat their users like cattle. They get away with it because again the services are free and the users are not the customers. But once you start selling something that dynamic changes. And gamers can get a bit... emotional lets say.
What am I missing?
posted by iamnotangry at 2:54 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
What am I missing?
Well, the possibility of price discrimination: if they can get the people who wouldn't pay $60 for AC:14 while also not poaching away the people who would pay $60, then that's extra profit. One way to do this is to offer a degraded version, such as, to pick a possibility entirely out of a hat at random, a version with extra input latency. The people willing to pay $60 won't settle for the cheaper version with extra latency, and will continue to pay $60, and the people who wouldn't pay $60 might be willing to pay $15 and put up with a somewhat worse experience.
posted by Pyry at 3:08 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Well, the possibility of price discrimination: if they can get the people who wouldn't pay $60 for AC:14 while also not poaching away the people who would pay $60, then that's extra profit. One way to do this is to offer a degraded version, such as, to pick a possibility entirely out of a hat at random, a version with extra input latency. The people willing to pay $60 won't settle for the cheaper version with extra latency, and will continue to pay $60, and the people who wouldn't pay $60 might be willing to pay $15 and put up with a somewhat worse experience.
posted by Pyry at 3:08 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I tried the beta for this for some hours on the cheapest cable internet.
It worked pretty well. The image degraded sometimes, but lag was fine.
Don't worry, there will be a lot of "free" games to play.
The opportunity for more unregulated data harvesting, behind the curtain attention manipulation and eye balls on their ads is where it's at: "youtube for games"
posted by haemanu at 3:12 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
It worked pretty well. The image degraded sometimes, but lag was fine.
Don't worry, there will be a lot of "free" games to play.
The opportunity for more unregulated data harvesting, behind the curtain attention manipulation and eye balls on their ads is where it's at: "youtube for games"
posted by haemanu at 3:12 PM on March 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
Is this going to be your standard MPEG4/x264/VP9 video compression? Or is there some secret sauce to represent video game geometry and interpolate frames in 3D?
I've been playing around with UE4's Pixel Stream tech and, while I don't know what's under the hood (definitely Web Sockets), it's really solid on a good connection. The downside is you need to spin up a server with a GPU to render things to the remote device. For each application/instance. Maybe Google has figured out how to scale this without having a ridiculous number of machine instances. Sounds a bit like magic, but that's what game dev has always been.
posted by ryoshu at 3:24 PM on March 20, 2019
I've been playing around with UE4's Pixel Stream tech and, while I don't know what's under the hood (definitely Web Sockets), it's really solid on a good connection. The downside is you need to spin up a server with a GPU to render things to the remote device. For each application/instance. Maybe Google has figured out how to scale this without having a ridiculous number of machine instances. Sounds a bit like magic, but that's what game dev has always been.
posted by ryoshu at 3:24 PM on March 20, 2019
The only people I see whooping about this are those who run Linux and/or Chromebooks with no alternative. It's an untapped market, for sure.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:33 PM on March 20, 2019
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:33 PM on March 20, 2019
This might be nice for countries that have decent internet, e.g. not Australia.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:48 PM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:48 PM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
What am I missing?
Steam is also a free service with shitty customer service, but is an enormous cash cow just by scraping 5-30% from every transaction on their platform. This is not a situation like Twitter/Snapchap/Spotify, where monetizing the userbase is a major hurdle. Gamers love to be monetized, and if Google can steal away even a fraction of the current PC/mobile/console gaming market, they shouldn't struggle to make profits.
posted by parallellines at 3:55 PM on March 20, 2019
Steam is also a free service with shitty customer service, but is an enormous cash cow just by scraping 5-30% from every transaction on their platform. This is not a situation like Twitter/Snapchap/Spotify, where monetizing the userbase is a major hurdle. Gamers love to be monetized, and if Google can steal away even a fraction of the current PC/mobile/console gaming market, they shouldn't struggle to make profits.
posted by parallellines at 3:55 PM on March 20, 2019
I don't really see how the money works for this service. If the pricing is like Netflix, aka an all-you-can-play subscription service, the game publishers aren't going to license their stuff - just like Netflix, it's going to be barren of AAA games [Netflix: movies]. Unlike Netflix, Google isn't going to start a games development division.
If you have to buy games individually like the existing stores, they're not going to be discounted that much. Publishers know that for AAA games, people are still willing to pay a lot of money when they first come out, even though we all know in 2-3 years it will be half the price.
My preferred scenario is that Google licenses this technology and it gets used to improve PSNow or GeForce Now, because Google is just not that great at anything customer-facing and they're not game publishers nor developers.
posted by meowzilla at 4:20 PM on March 20, 2019
If you have to buy games individually like the existing stores, they're not going to be discounted that much. Publishers know that for AAA games, people are still willing to pay a lot of money when they first come out, even though we all know in 2-3 years it will be half the price.
My preferred scenario is that Google licenses this technology and it gets used to improve PSNow or GeForce Now, because Google is just not that great at anything customer-facing and they're not game publishers nor developers.
posted by meowzilla at 4:20 PM on March 20, 2019
> Unlike Netflix, Google isn't going to start a games development division.
It looks like they are.
posted by No One Ever Does at 4:37 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
It looks like they are.
posted by No One Ever Does at 4:37 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Huh. Well, good luck to them - it's hard to actually create games that people actually want to play, regardless of how much money you throw at the problem. Development studios seem to close after one or two "below expectation" releases. It seems like Google is currently just paying lots of money to get other developers' games on their platform.
posted by meowzilla at 4:55 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by meowzilla at 4:55 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
A 1080p, 60fps video stream typically weighs in at around 12-15 Mb/s; not trivial, but quite a bit less
You'd be surprised at how good well optimized video can look on the latest codecs. I feel like the most optimized implementations of the H.265 codec can run 1080p video at a 1.5mbps and have it feel "good enough" compared to standard Bluray (25mbps at H.264).
They could run other optimizations like build an API to layer the UI separately to keep it perfectly crisp and avoid creating obviously visible artifacts and increasing the complexity of the stream - kind of like how video files have subtitles on a separate stream entirely.
As for latency concerns and inability to "hide" latency by going serverside - I also know there's often more latency between a keyboard and monitor than there is between the PC and the game server. I would bet that eliminating this one source of latency and introducing another will actually feel equivalent to many gamers, unless you were one of those hardcore types that actually tried to minimize keyboard to monitor latency.
posted by xdvesper at 5:19 PM on March 20, 2019
You'd be surprised at how good well optimized video can look on the latest codecs. I feel like the most optimized implementations of the H.265 codec can run 1080p video at a 1.5mbps and have it feel "good enough" compared to standard Bluray (25mbps at H.264).
They could run other optimizations like build an API to layer the UI separately to keep it perfectly crisp and avoid creating obviously visible artifacts and increasing the complexity of the stream - kind of like how video files have subtitles on a separate stream entirely.
As for latency concerns and inability to "hide" latency by going serverside - I also know there's often more latency between a keyboard and monitor than there is between the PC and the game server. I would bet that eliminating this one source of latency and introducing another will actually feel equivalent to many gamers, unless you were one of those hardcore types that actually tried to minimize keyboard to monitor latency.
posted by xdvesper at 5:19 PM on March 20, 2019
Finally a use for all those idle GPUs no longer being used in cryptocurrency mining operations.
Note: cloud computing does not mean you are using the latest and greatest hardware. There is a physical device you are using - even if they are just spinning up a VM (and obfuscating another layer of abstraction.) That means someone on the same platform is likely running a better rig then you - because the cloud doesn't port all their users and throw out all the hardware every time there is a hardware iteration.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:25 PM on March 20, 2019
Note: cloud computing does not mean you are using the latest and greatest hardware. There is a physical device you are using - even if they are just spinning up a VM (and obfuscating another layer of abstraction.) That means someone on the same platform is likely running a better rig then you - because the cloud doesn't port all their users and throw out all the hardware every time there is a hardware iteration.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:25 PM on March 20, 2019
Are they actually planning to make money of subscription fees? Google's customer service is nonexistent and they treat their users like cattle. They get away with it because again the services are free and the users are not the customers. But once you start selling something that dynamic changes. And gamers can get a bit... emotional lets say.
What am I missing?
The thing no one has mentioned yet seems pretty obvious to me: Google Fiber & Google Fi.
Lots of people have pointed out that the bandwidth numbers don't really make sense even if you have the nicer tiers of Comcast service, and who is going to pay for the bandwidth to stream games constantly on their phone? Well.... there are no bandwidth caps on Fi service, and seems to me that Google Fiber is basically Anytown, USA's only hope of service of that caliber. Why does Amazon include Music & Videos with Prime shipping service? It's a value add. Gamers tend be early adopters as well.
You are correct that Google's customer service is nonexistent if you don't pay them - that is definitely not true if you are their customer though. Go read what people think about Fi compared to AT&T's world renown customer service.
I bet the next Pixel will be "now with Stradia technology*"
* & good luck with that if you're not on Fi or G Fiber...
posted by bradbane at 6:52 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
What am I missing?
The thing no one has mentioned yet seems pretty obvious to me: Google Fiber & Google Fi.
Lots of people have pointed out that the bandwidth numbers don't really make sense even if you have the nicer tiers of Comcast service, and who is going to pay for the bandwidth to stream games constantly on their phone? Well.... there are no bandwidth caps on Fi service, and seems to me that Google Fiber is basically Anytown, USA's only hope of service of that caliber. Why does Amazon include Music & Videos with Prime shipping service? It's a value add. Gamers tend be early adopters as well.
You are correct that Google's customer service is nonexistent if you don't pay them - that is definitely not true if you are their customer though. Go read what people think about Fi compared to AT&T's world renown customer service.
I bet the next Pixel will be "now with Stradia technology*"
* & good luck with that if you're not on Fi or G Fiber...
posted by bradbane at 6:52 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
God, I would love to have a real broadband provider instead of Comcast.
posted by xedrik at 7:38 PM on March 20, 2019
posted by xedrik at 7:38 PM on March 20, 2019
Finally a use for all those idle GPUs no longer being used in cryptocurrency mining operations.
Note: cloud computing does not mean you are using the latest and greatest hardware. There is a physical device you are using - even if they are just spinning up a VM (and obfuscating another layer of abstraction.) That means someone on the same platform is likely running a better rig then you - because the cloud doesn't port all their users and throw out all the hardware every time there is a hardware iteration.
It seems like Google is building custom standardized next-gen hardware for this.
For general cloud computing like web services, the hardware probably doesn't matter. Part of the selling point for this is that engine devs can make very specific optimizations and know that everything is using the exact same (very powerful) hardware.
posted by justkevin at 7:38 PM on March 20, 2019
Note: cloud computing does not mean you are using the latest and greatest hardware. There is a physical device you are using - even if they are just spinning up a VM (and obfuscating another layer of abstraction.) That means someone on the same platform is likely running a better rig then you - because the cloud doesn't port all their users and throw out all the hardware every time there is a hardware iteration.
It seems like Google is building custom standardized next-gen hardware for this.
For general cloud computing like web services, the hardware probably doesn't matter. Part of the selling point for this is that engine devs can make very specific optimizations and know that everything is using the exact same (very powerful) hardware.
posted by justkevin at 7:38 PM on March 20, 2019
Google's customer service is nonexistent and they treat their users like cattle.
As someone mentioned this is not true if you pay Google. As a google business customer, their tech support is responsive and helpful, and was surprisingly competent with hard problems. I’ve used free gmail as well, so I get the typical understanding of Google customer service though. Web forums do not make a good tech support solution.
posted by herda05 at 9:16 PM on March 20, 2019
As someone mentioned this is not true if you pay Google. As a google business customer, their tech support is responsive and helpful, and was surprisingly competent with hard problems. I’ve used free gmail as well, so I get the typical understanding of Google customer service though. Web forums do not make a good tech support solution.
posted by herda05 at 9:16 PM on March 20, 2019
I'm on the cheapest consumer-grade broadband offered by my utterly unremarkable supplier (Broadband from Yorkshire™) and I'm looking at most of these jokes and comments about how unreliable video streaming are like they're somewhere between unrecognisable and hugely exaggerated, depending. Video streaming at high resolutions works flawlessly on this pretty shitty connection. I can imagine games being perfectly workable (again, same cheap as chips consumer connection, I get about 10ms to ping Google and 30-40ms ping in Rocket League) nevermind if you had like, an actually good connection. This is going to be totally viable and largely unproblematic for a lot of the world, I guess just not the US?
posted by Dysk at 3:03 AM on March 21, 2019
posted by Dysk at 3:03 AM on March 21, 2019
All the hemming and hawing about whether or not this will work is all very amusing to me given that I've been playing games almost exclusively using GeForce Now on my Shield TV for over a year now. It works fine as long as you aren't dropping packets.
It usually worked on a crappy 18/1 DSL connection over WiFi even with other people watching YouTube or Netflix. Since moving and switching to Comcast 14 months ago, I can count the number of problems I've had with the streaming aspect on one hand.
It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a GTX1660, that's for sure. Even if I did spend that money, I'd still be streaming, just across the LAN instead of from Nvidia or Google's data center.
posted by wierdo at 7:24 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
It usually worked on a crappy 18/1 DSL connection over WiFi even with other people watching YouTube or Netflix. Since moving and switching to Comcast 14 months ago, I can count the number of problems I've had with the streaming aspect on one hand.
It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a GTX1660, that's for sure. Even if I did spend that money, I'd still be streaming, just across the LAN instead of from Nvidia or Google's data center.
posted by wierdo at 7:24 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Well, I've been streaming NetHack from a shell account sinc... hey, where are you going?
posted by ODiV at 7:30 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by ODiV at 7:30 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Also, from experience, it's about 3-4GB/hour depending on what exactly you're playing, since people were speculating..
posted by wierdo at 7:32 AM on March 21, 2019
posted by wierdo at 7:32 AM on March 21, 2019
Maybe it was all the MUDs I played in the 90s that desensitized me to lag. ;)
posted by wierdo at 7:34 AM on March 21, 2019
posted by wierdo at 7:34 AM on March 21, 2019
I forgot about GeForce NOW. It looks like they require you own the game on Steam, so they haven't quite cracked the business model yet. Nice to know the tech works though.
posted by Nelson at 7:40 AM on March 21, 2019
posted by Nelson at 7:40 AM on March 21, 2019
Google Fiber's future is also looking pretty bleak. I don't think they were really part of this strategy.
posted by meowzilla at 11:40 AM on March 21, 2019
posted by meowzilla at 11:40 AM on March 21, 2019
More seriously, I wonder if this whole gaming thing isn't just a way to load balance against deep learning.
I think that's part of it. It's sort of like Amazon with AWS: once you're building out capacity, the marginal cost of building more capacity—once you're just tacking on to an existing purchase order for hardware, putting some extra racks in a datacenter, etc. etc.—doesn't cost that much.
They know (or think they know) they have to build out a shitload of vector processing units for AI acceleration anyway, because that's where they clearly think the future of 'search' is, and where the opportunities to wring value out of their huge datasets are. The cheapest AI accelerators right now, at datacenter scale, are GPUs. (I'm not sure that this will be true in a few years; I think eventually GPUs and AI hardware is going to diverge, maybe it has already, and you'll see pure AI ASICs everywhere that aren't useful for other stuff.) So they're building this stuff anyway; being able to also build a gaming service is sort of a bonus, like Amazon being able to sell capacity to other people as a service platform was.
If it gets popular, great! They have a new product and a new income source. If it flops? No real harm, it probably just means they delay some downstream capacity upgrade and soak up all those GPUs in various AI tasks. It's not zero-cost to them, because they're spending money sooner that they might have held onto until later, but it's probably lower cost than it appears for the hardware. And that's their "moat", competitively: it's hard for some company without that synergy of AI/ML ambitions to jump in with both feet in the same way. If, say, Blizzard tried to do the same thing and customers didn't buy into it, they'd be looking at huge writeoff.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think that's part of it. It's sort of like Amazon with AWS: once you're building out capacity, the marginal cost of building more capacity—once you're just tacking on to an existing purchase order for hardware, putting some extra racks in a datacenter, etc. etc.—doesn't cost that much.
They know (or think they know) they have to build out a shitload of vector processing units for AI acceleration anyway, because that's where they clearly think the future of 'search' is, and where the opportunities to wring value out of their huge datasets are. The cheapest AI accelerators right now, at datacenter scale, are GPUs. (I'm not sure that this will be true in a few years; I think eventually GPUs and AI hardware is going to diverge, maybe it has already, and you'll see pure AI ASICs everywhere that aren't useful for other stuff.) So they're building this stuff anyway; being able to also build a gaming service is sort of a bonus, like Amazon being able to sell capacity to other people as a service platform was.
If it gets popular, great! They have a new product and a new income source. If it flops? No real harm, it probably just means they delay some downstream capacity upgrade and soak up all those GPUs in various AI tasks. It's not zero-cost to them, because they're spending money sooner that they might have held onto until later, but it's probably lower cost than it appears for the hardware. And that's their "moat", competitively: it's hard for some company without that synergy of AI/ML ambitions to jump in with both feet in the same way. If, say, Blizzard tried to do the same thing and customers didn't buy into it, they'd be looking at huge writeoff.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:45 PM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by Kattullus at 8:34 AM on March 20, 2019 [21 favorites]