Bored of Facebook? Looking for that next big thing to fill your online surfing hours?
I’m always checking news feeds and my favourite monthly magazines for the occasional scoop as I continue to hunt for the next big thing.
Recently, something that’s definitely caught my eye is cloud gaming: touted as free, next-generation gaming. Could this be the next big thing?
The concept of online gaming is nothing new; I remember playing Splatter Ball on the old AOL networks back in their heyday. Online gaming is merely a connection of machines together, sometimes with a host server managing the connections. Cloud gaming goes a step further: it takes away much of the hardware requirements by running the game from a remote computer. Yes, you still get to play, but you don’t need an expensive games console. In fact, the system is device agnostic and the entry requirements are low.
Just imagine your PC, Mac, TV or other video device is in the North Pole and you have a really long cable attaching it to your game controller. When you press a button, data is sent all the way to a computer in the North Pole, which then calculates your controls and sends back a video of the result. Now imagine that the games console is a supercomputer with several hundred people playing games simultaneously on it. It’s as simple as that folks.
The benefits
There are lots of benefits that you might not initially expect. Firstly, the initial outlay of a high-powered gaming device is no longer required. In fact, the maintenance and renewal of these devices is also abolished. This means that you always have the latest and greatest gaming device available for free.
Next up is the ‘eco factor’: using a shared system that powers many games means your gaming carbon foot print is lowered. Other cool features include the ability to watch other players around the globe play games in real time (this is great for people interested in buying a game or looking for tips and tricks from more experienced gamers). On holiday or on a business trip? No problem; cloud gaming works wherever you can get an internet connection.
For publishers, the ability for pirates to copy games is no more. On the other hand, the threat of account hacking is now more prominent, but this poses a much harder task for the black hat hackers. It also allows a publisher to develop a game on one system but to deliver it to many platforms without the need to re-engineer the game itself. This saves time and money, which either means bigger profits for them or cheaper games for us.
The drawbacks
The first and foremost issue is that a fast and reliable internet connection is required (if you have a 5Mbps or faster line, you should be fine to play games in 720p hi-def). Without such, you are gameless. Every second of your gaming experience (including the menus) is streamed through the internet.
The next big issue is with latency. Latency is the difference in time between you pressing a button, and the result of that button being pressed occurring on screen. Going back to my analogy, when you press a button it’s slower to send a signal all the way to the North Pole than to your console a few feet away.
Where to get it
Currently there are two options: OnLive and Gaikai. Only OnLive is actually up and running, while Gaikai is still in beta.
With lots of game publishers jumping on board, and the potential for the system to constantly innovate and integrate with Facebook and other services, cloud gaming could be a console killer.
OnLive is free to register, and games can be either bought or rented with free demos available to try before you buy. Visit OnLive.com and try it today.
This blog entry is not sponsored by OnLive by the way; I just really like computer games.
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