Game streaming is coming. It's been coming since before we all laughed at OnLive and ignored PlayStation Now, and those too-little-too-soon gambits did nothing to impede its inevitable arrival. It is the future, in the sense that a credible and widely-used iteration of game streaming technology is around the corner and is something everyone reading this will probably end up using. Whether this future will prove mutually exclusive with other futures - those of games consoles and of digital platforms like Steam - is much more debatable. But it's coming regardless.
The games industry was unequivocal on that fact at E3 this year. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot mentioned it to anyone who would listen, while EA promised its own service tied into EA Access. More consequentially (with the greatest respect to EA), Phil Spencer said Microsoft was planning an Xbox-branded game streaming service.
Earlier this week, we heard the first details about what Microsoft is calling Project xCloud, in apparent response to last week's announcement of a long-rumoured game streaming offering from Google. Google's Project Stream is already in testing in the US; xCloud hardware is being installed in data centres, but public testing won't begin until next year.
So, if game streaming fulfils its potential and follows the trajectory of other streamed media, the seemingly modest and speculative announcements of the last seven days could prove to be momentous indeed. We could be witnessing, in the early days of Project Stream and Project xCloud, the foundation of ubiquitous game platforms of the future with the potential to rival or even sweep aside players such as PlayStation and Steam. After all, who watches DVDs any more? Or buys CDs?
Well, some do, and this is the first clue that this video game platform revolution could be quite different to those that came before it and perhaps not quite so all-consuming. Particularly relevant has been the rise of vinyl records in the face of digital and streaming music. Vinyl, with its warm analogue sound and large, beautiful packaging, provides a tangibly different experience to streaming, which is more than you can honestly say of CDs. It's more tactile and intimate.
I think the same is likely to be true of games, where hardcore fans and competitive players are highly attuned to the responsiveness of the controls. No matter how good streaming gets, local gaming will always feel different. You can imagine some players resolutely sticking to local hardware, while others might prefer it for some games (FIFA, Street Fighter) while being happy to enjoy a slower-paced experience like Assassin's Creed over the net.
Full article: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-10-11-google-and-xbox-just-started-the-next-platform-war
I for one, will definitely be sticking with full physical consoles and physical games, which I expect to last at least through the 2020s decade. I definitely want to try Microsoft's xCloud streaming with the Scarlet 'lite' console, even though I plan to get the traditional full next gen Xbox Scarlett, and PS5, at launch.