A few gamedevs mentioned some interesting tidbits about the Nintendo Switch offerings for their games

[delete12345]

I was just eating instant noodles and a pint of broccoli cheddar soup I bought from Costco. It's quite nice, but it gets salty after a while, so I ate a banana to guff it all down. Then I drink a cup of eggnog that I bought from the supermarket. I guess it's the seasonal thing that's happening whenever Autumn arrives.

Anyway, while I was eating my lunch, I decided to browse on my Discord and see what's going on in real life. What caught my eyes were a discussion a few gamedevs were chatting about, in regards to the Nintendo Switch.

I'll highlight the important points in bullet list for now:

• A gamedev mentioned how, amongst his friends and colleagues, they all predicted in 5 to 10 years, everything is going to be streamed.

To bring in some context, what they are talking about are video games. Starting with the home PC, it will be a server or a large computer with a powerful graphics card, and then you'll start to virtualize instances (like VMs) to use on laptops or thin clients around your home or your portable devices. Your laptop might even support SIM cards to enable cellular 5G connection and you can use that as your high-speed internet to access your home PC. They think that, with this technology, you can play streamed games on your devices. And they wanted to encourage more developers/studios to try out putting their games on the cloud and stream them.

But then, the discussion pivoted over to the downsides of streamed games. For instance, the Switch. They think that, with such offerings, streamed games like the Switch cloud edition games, wouldn't be as enticing to the Switch users who wanted to obtain physical copies of the games.

This spawned another discussion where, another gamedev joined the conversation and added their opinions, saying that streamed games (cloud edition games) on the Switch are not as compelling as streamed games on a tablet (iOS, Android tablets). And then another gamedev (4th one) mentioned you can strap a hotspot battery pack add-on to your Switch.

All in all, they feel that the cloud edition games on the Nintendo Switch is starting to become the widespread acceptance of an industry standard for streaming games to a portable device. And that they can see the benefits of moving their games to the Switch because of this benefit.

• Online multiplayer-focused games are acceptable if they are also cloud edition games on the Nintendo Switch

After a bit of munching on my noodles and slurping up my broccoli cheddar soup, I noticed I needed to throw my trash out because it's trash pick-up day. I walked outside and I see a bunch of trash bags piling up in our neighborhood dumpster, preventing me from being able to push them all down to give room for my trash. Ugh... I wished they just stop throwing a lot sometimes.

Anyway, I returned to my desk after a brief outing in the partly cloudy day, and I noticed another discussion topic on Discord. A gamedev mentioned that, it might be possible to increase graphical quality on the Nintendo Switch, if the game is both:

1. Cloud edition game
2. Online multiplayer-focused game.

Since, you need to be always online to play the multiplayer game on the Switch, and you need to be online to play the cloud edition of the same game. This means, if the streamed game requires intense graphical visuals, a lot of particle effects, physics-heavy destructibles, and other performance-tanking calculations, it might still be possible to offer such a game to the Switch users. This allows the gamedevs to look into another ever-growing revenue-making market of the Nintendo fanbase, and market their games towards this.

Well, that gamedev got shot down by others, because it's more about the form factor of the Nintendo Switch when you're playing an online-multiplayer heavy game, particularly if the game is a cloud edition of the game.

I see this as interesting as my cup of eggnog, and I don't have much to say on this... so I thought I share these discussions to you all.

Thoughts?

 

[RedHeat]

The main or only way to play games? Because the distinction is important. I don't think it will be the ONLY way to play games in the next decade just because you essentially cut out a massive part of the market who have poor internet connection, no internet connection, or have data caps. I agree that multiplayer games (especially on a portable device) makes the most sense being streamed-only because it's already technically always being streamed.

 

[TubaZef]

Sure, if your game is multiplayer only, makes total sense to have it being on the cloud. That was one of the things Stadia was going for, but in the end, no one used that.

I think those topics are a discussion for all of the industry and not just the Switch. I think streaming is the future, but it will take a while... 10 years is good guess for richer countries, but not sure about everyone else as the big impediment for streaming is Internet accessibility and speed. Solving that is not just a matter of technology but also infrastructure, economics and politics.

 

[Grue]

Post fixed to match avatar:

I was just eating instant noodles and a pint of broccoli cheddar soup I bought from Costco. It's quite nice, but it gets salty after a while, so I ate a banana to guff it all down. Then I drink a cup of eggnog that I bought from the supermarket. I guess it's the seasonal thing that's happening whenever Autumn arrives.

After a bit of munching on my noodles and slurping up my broccoli cheddar soup, I noticed I needed to throw my trash out because it's trash pick-up day. I walked outside and I see a bunch of trash bags piling up in our neighborhood dumpster, preventing me from being able to push them all down to give room for my trash. Ugh... I wished they just stop throwing a lot sometimes.

Anyway, I returned to my desk after a brief outing in the partly cloudy day

I see this as interesting as my cup of eggnog, and I don't have much to say on this...

Click to shrink...

 

[StreamedHams]

Two things of note:

1. I'm literally eating a broccoli cheddar soup w/ bread bowl.

2. I use XBox streaming to my pc, phone, tablet almost everyday. That and steampunk works well for me. I can enjoy stadia on my wife, but my cell signal isn't fast enough yet.

Streaming, in some capacity, is the future. Personally, I think MS is leading the way in functionality.

 

[nsilvias]

Unless data caps are killed or a good low bandwidth video codec that doesn't look like complete shit with games comes out no streaming won't become the default.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I can enjoy stadia on my wife,

Click to shrink...

pretty high tech wife you got there

 

[Saturday]

whoa, cheddar broccoli soup AND instant noodles? that is a lot of salt. But I can't really imagine a banana helps cut that saltiness?

anyway as other posters have already mentioned, we just don't have enough freely flowing internet for streaming games to become the norm, and it's a bit difficult to imagine this radically changing even a whole decade out. I can easily imagine it growing; it has been in the general state of gaming for a decent while now. But I don't think it'll replace physical.

 

[Deleted member 8752]

I'm interested to see the sales data to back this up.

 

[TubaZef]

pretty high tech wife you got there

Click to shrink...

Most wives can barely run DOOM

 

[PtM]

You've made me hungry, OP. >:(

I can see it becoming a trend, but the games that are going for global saturation / shit-internet accessiblity or by conservative devs (most of all, Nintendo games) are going to stay local for a bit longer.

 

[TheMoon]

What are we even doing when the recipe for the broccoli cheddar/cheese soup is nowhere in this thread so far.

 

[Deleted member 87949]

Sorry, what's the source? Is this third-hand? "A few game devs on Discord" could be literally anyone.

How do you know what you read has more insight into the Switch and/or cloud gaming than a random Resetera thread?

 

[Grue]

What are we even doing when the recipe for the broccoli cheddar/cheese soup is nowhere in this thread so far.

Click to shrink...

Dude it's a tanuki in a bathtub full of used dollar bills.

Let's tackle hygiene first.

 

[chiller]

This is an absolute nightmare from a preservationist point of view.

 

[mpak]

The streaming is the future. I mean we now even has OS in the cloud. Streaming is just so convenient. No bound to a single place, play anywhere.

 

[parasite2]

Mmm interesting, apparently Nintendo is encouraging third party developers to make cloud games

 

[L Thammy]

I don't like this at all, but I just wanted to say that I initially read the title of this post as "a few grandmas" and was very confused for a moment.

 

[Stairmaster_]

Wait, they're selling egg nog already? I haven't seen it in stores at all yet. Normally it comes around mid-November or so. What brand was the soup?

 

[jroc74]

As someone who's working from home Mon thru Fri....streaming can be great. But with the connection and slow down issues I have....I dont know if even 5 to 10 years from now it will be good enough for gaming.

And I'm only doing admin, office type work. Like I have to take my work off the network drive or deal with potentially losing work because I didn't hit save enough, thats how flaky the network drive is. We are connected to our job remotely...and the network drive is like an extra remote layer. So even taking it off the network drive its still under a remote connection.

Had this same issue at my previous job, and that was off a company/corporate/government network. It was alot better, but there were still issues.

I cant see home networks becoming as robust as company/corporate//government networks in 5 to 10 years, or if it does its gonna cost alot more than it does now.

 

[Windu]

I mean yeah, streaming is a viable option going forward. There is a reason why companies are dumping billions into it.

 

[delete12345]

Wait, they're selling egg nog already? I haven't seen it in stores at all yet. Normally it comes around mid-November or so. What brand was the soup?

Click to shrink...

Your typical Kirkland Signature Cheddar Broccoli Soup, currently at a discount right now.

 

[Lord Fanny]

Sorry, what's the source? Is this third-hand? "A few game devs on Discord" could be literally anyone.

How do you know what you read has more insight into the Switch and/or cloud gaming than a random Resetera thread?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, this whole topic is odd, had something of a hard time following where all this information comes from. "Game devs" in a Discord. Okay, I guess.

Mmm interesting, apparently Nintendo is encouraging third party developers to make cloud games

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Not sure if that's really pushing third parties in general to do cloud games as much as them recognizing that a lot of ports aren't feasible and trying to get devs they know won't put in that work (like Square) to do it that way. Not sure if it's quite the same thing.

 

[Praedyth]

I live in a city that is hub to a bunch of transatlantic internet cables, I thought streaming would be the future for me but after trying Xbox Cloud Gaming for a few hours I'm conviced consoles (and offline gaming) will still be around for 20 more years minimum.

 

[daegan]

assuming a streaming-only future requires an assumption that the players that make the biggest console/PC games successful will want to play them on other devices. this is shown time and time again to not be the case except in those instances where the game is also made with mobile in mind…but in those cases it's still running native.(fortnite is a great example, I think everyone would've assumed before the trial that the majority of their cash flow was via mobile, not PS.)

we are 15-20 years away at minimum from, for example, the Warzone player base being totally okay with just using controllers on their phones or running a client on a smart tv, if ever.

 

[styl_oh]

yo

his palms are eggy, knees cheese, fall he's ready
broccoli on his sweater already, ramen empty
he's got a banana, autumn already

 

[Deleted member 17184]

I think a stable, fast, and cheap Internet connection needs to come first before everything is based on cloud games. The people in these conversations often forget that underdeveloped countries are far from having something like that. It'll definitely take more than five years.

 

[daegan]

I think a stable, fast, and cheap Internet connection needs to come first before everything is based on cloud games. The people in these conversations often forget that underdeveloped countries are far from having something like that. It'll definitely take more than five years.

Click to shrink...

not even just underdeveloped countries, there are plenty of places in the US that don't have this! and folks who invest in a better internet experience are, to no surprise, people who can afford to and choose to invest in gaming hardware.

 

[TheBlackSwordsman]

Please, don't.

Everything being streamed/cloud based is how you make me lose interest. For example, I wanted KH on Switch, but now I won't buy it since it is cloud only.

I want physical games and consoles. I want to own my things.

 

[thediamondage]

game devs have been predicting games will be mainstream streaming for about 10 years now. Its made baby steps but until there is global, free unlimited high bandwidth internet access for all people accessible pretty much anywhere its still gonna be on the lower ratio.

Global universal internet will happen this century, its not really a question of why but when. Gaming and entertainment will be the driving factors to drive it into every persons hands.

 

[Pyro]

Best opening to a thread ever

 

[Saikyo]

Well they don't care about SA or places that there are data caps I guess lol...

 

[Atom]

Games that are streaming only but otherwise could be single player preserved and archived experiences might as well not exist to me.

It's no bother to me if that's where the industry goes though. Enough games already out that are playable in perpetuity to be worrying about streaming.

 

[dose]

Unless data caps are killed or a good low bandwidth video codec that doesn't look like complete shit with games comes out no streaming won't become the default.

Click to shrink...

Agreed, and what an odd thread.
Bear in mind that games are now in 4k, and eventually will be in 8k further down the line, how is that going to be streamable for everyone?
For those who wouldn't be able to, would they want to give up playing ultra resolution games for some potentially artifacted, laggy version in a lower res instead?

 

[Shin Kojima]

Broccoli cheddar soup sounds kind of interesting.

 

[Razor Mom]

Unless data caps are killed or a good low bandwidth video codec that doesn't look like complete shit with games comes out no streaming won't become the default.

Click to shrink...

As a gamedev, this. Also Nintendo doesn't seem to push cloud versions in particular, not sure where that guy is coming from.

 

[EvilBoris]

Mmm interesting, apparently Nintendo is encouraging third party developers to make cloud games

Click to shrink...

This is going to be a very specific type of game.
As it stands right now, you either don't get a port of a new game on the Switch because the machine literally can't handle it or you get the old school Nintendo handheld backport version(like FIFA for example). Control, Hitman and a couple of others have solved this problem by running it on the cloud.
We've now moved onto Next generation hardware and the Switch is going to get even less. If Nintendo are encouraging anything , it's trying to get things like the latest Far Cry or Battlefield game on to the Switch, at least as an option.
All the obstacles that people mention about image quality or data caps all all irrelevant if it means a Switch owner is not even given any option in the first place.

If this is what devs are seeing (which is more likely coming from the companies that provides the cloud service and framework for switch) then it may be an indication that Nintendo aren't planning on a machine that closes the gap between the PS5 and the SX in the immediate future.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

I want a recipe for that soup, sounds delish.

Also, a streaming only future sounds terrible. I want to own my physical consoles and games, and not just stream everything from the cloud.

 

[pswii60]

Switch Pro will just be a cloud streaming device.

 

[butzopower]

pretty high tech wife you got there

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Stadia runs on like everything.

 

[butzopower]

I'm still surprised there's no cloud version of FFXIV, I played a Destiny 2 on Stadia for about a week with a friend, I decided to try on a whim and I was in in 2 minutes creating a character. When I invited my friend we were playing together in less than 10 minutes after I told him about what Stadia was.

 

[Thera]

Streaming won't replace dedicated devices. It will be an alternative for more casual people that want to play Halo or Uncharted but not spending 500-600 to do it.

Even Valve will release their own device.

 

[Powerofthecloud]

Steaming services are just kind of like a beta service and will be for a long long time. Physical hardware options are not going anywhere. It's kind of funny with these companies rumors going all streaming talk is similar to the newer phone gaming market taking over consoles a decade ago.

 

[Stairmaster_]

Your typical Kirkland Signature Cheddar Broccoli Soup, currently at a discount right now.

Click to shrink...

Thanks chief

 

[ILikeFeet]

All the obstacles that people mention about image quality or data caps all all irrelevant if it means a Switch owner is not even given any option in the first place.

Click to shrink...

until streaming because a desirable service (or the quality of internet is at the point where 99% can play without issue), I can't see stream as far off from "no option". "better than nothing" isn't always a good thing

 

[Flygon]

Why have a streamed version of the game when you can just play it on PC, or PlayStation/XBOX?
Why buy a worse version of the game on the Switch when about any reasonably PC made in the last 5 years or the previous generation consoles can provide a much better experience?

A cloud version of the game ruins the entire point of the Switch - the fact you can play it on the train.

 

[Se_t]

Well if that's the future of gaming I won't be a part of it… Do they realise that a lot people don't have access to high bandwidth? I live in the country side with a terrible internet, I buy 90% of my games physical because : resell value and I don't have to wait a week before playing my game because it's downloading so bad and I can't do anything on the computer while it's downloading.

Also hate the idea that at any point the infrastructure can go offline (it did with the Quest with face book down last week) and means I can't play my games. Let's not even talk about how my internet just randomly stop working for hours sometimes because country side.

Streaming may be 50% of gaming, but even then, I don't think it will happen in the next 10 years, may be 15 or 20. I'd love to see the sales numbers for cloud version games on Switch, can't believe it sold much, we saw how well cloud gaming sold with Stadia…

 

[AgeEighty]

These conversations and predictions always seem to ignore the absolutely dire state of net infrastructure in the US, and the looming threat of metered internet from ISPs who have been falling all over themselves for years to eliminate unlimited service.

Personally, I will be dragged kicking and screaming into an all-streaming future for gaming.

 

[EvilBoris]

until streaming because a desirable service (or the quality of internet is at the point where 99% can play without issue), I can't see stream as far off from "no option". "better than nothing" isn't always a good thing

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You would literally never play a game than have to play it via streaming on your undepowered device?
Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Reviews of the steaming games on Switch say you are missing out on great games.

 

[ILikeFeet]

You would literally never play a game than have to play it via streaming on your undepowered device?
Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Reviews of the steaming games on Switch say you are missing out on great games.

Click to shrink...

we just had a whole thread of people doing that. when I have better options, yes. if my infrastructure can't handle it, yes. if it conflicts with my preferred method of play, absolutely yes