This fact means it's a highly compatible and scalable system at the very least.
This fact means it's a highly compatible and scalable system at the very least.
arandomguy
Veteran
I'd assume it just uses NVENC, the GPU is the same one as Geforce Now. Game streaming is one of the reasons why Nvidia's invested heavily into encoder/capture performance (latency) and quality/bit rate on it's GPUs.
It's likely the back end setup is very similar to Geforce Now.
Layoffs at Luna?
www.cnbc.com
Amazon starts cutting jobs, with layoffs hitting Alexa unit and cloud gaming division
CEO Andy Jassy has moved aggressively to cut costs across Amazon, and the company previously said it would freeze hiring in its corporate workforce.
Sensible move in light of the recent general downturn that other similar firms are facing ...
With decreasing prices on consumer hardware which makes it more affordable for any potential subscribers to own their hardware, service providers having no control over their own infrastructure (Amazon paying Microsoft Windows VM licensing costs), fragmented content options available due to negotiations with many content creators, running a cloud gaming service is unsustainable ...
This leaves Microsoft and Sony as the only mainstream options left for cloud gaming. Nvidia won't be able to make it since they don't have extensive content hosting agreements with game publishers nor do they own the most important part of their infrastructure which are Windows VMs. Nintendo isn't a viable option either since their refusal to make commitments on backwards compatibility will mean that the lifetime of content availability is subject to the console platform it was developed on or they have incompatible APIs from each other thereby the end result being that developers abandon their cloud gaming service because it's unproductive to support ...
With decreasing prices on consumer hardware which makes it more affordable for any potential subscribers to own their hardware, service providers having no control over their own infrastructure (Amazon paying Microsoft Windows VM licensing costs), fragmented content options available due to negotiations with many content creators, running a cloud gaming service is unsustainable ...
This leaves Microsoft and Sony as the only mainstream options left for cloud gaming. Nvidia won't be able to make it since they don't have extensive content hosting agreements with game publishers nor do they own the most important part of their infrastructure which are Windows VMs. Nintendo isn't a viable option either since their refusal to make commitments on backwards compatibility will mean that the lifetime of content availability is subject to the console platform it was developed on or they have incompatible APIs from each other thereby the end result being that developers abandon their cloud gaming service because it's unproductive to support ...
What is different from before the pandemic, prices, if they are dropping, are just returning to "normal" again.
And the licensing must have been part of the business case when they set out in this endeavour.
I was of the impression that Nintendo where quite good with backwards compatibility in regards to their consoles...
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Cloud gaming is the future IMO, but it's going to take a long time. MS and Sony are the best positioned to make it happen as they won't have to rely on it while they are building it out. One day the network will just be fast enough and all of a sudden people will be playing God of War 7 and Gears of War 9 from cloud servers.
Amazon Luna is losing nearly 50 games before the end of the year
Amazon Luna is losing nearly 50 games over the course of November and December 2022, a huge hit to the cloud gaming service.
9to5google.com
Amazon Luna is in trouble.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
To be fair, most of the games on that list are not exactly AAA titles... I doubt most people would even know more than 10 games on that list.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
And that kind of immediacy to satisfy an urge to play would be really powerful if only these services could be put in front of people with the right equipment (a controller for most), a decent internet connection and somebody who genuinely doesn't mind playing games with worse latency than an Atari 2600.
There are more than enough people willing to play with that if the cost of entry is low. Controllers are cheap and not only that but people with older generation machines may have capable controllers laying around but don't want to invest into a new consoleAnd that kind of immediacy to satisfy an urge to play would be really powerful if only these services could be put in front of people with the right equipment (a controller for most), a decent internet connection and somebody who genuinely doesn't mind playing games with worse latency than an Atari 2600.
In terms of amazon there are a lot of people who may be looking to buy a game on amazon and see they can purchase it and have to purchase a new system or they can just stream it. It's the same with twitch. A person could be watching a twitch stream and think wow this game looks awesome or wow thsi streamer is hosting an online lobby let me spin up Luna from this super coinvent link and play with my favorite streamer
I mean there are plenty of people okay with 30fps also so why should latency really matter for someone willing to deal with 30fps ?
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
You describe a scenario in which cloud gaming should be flourishing but it's not. Ask yourself why. First controllers are not cheap. £50/$60 isn't cheap for a lot of people and decent controller makes all the difference. You can subscribe to Netflix for one month for less than the cost of buying a newly released Blu-ray Disc. It's not the same cost proposition at all.
Next you need a TV/stick and good Internet to get the service but the biggest barrier to them all, you need that service. The immediacy aspect, that spur-of-the-moment to try something needs to be in your life already. Most smart TVs have all of the premier streaming clients - Amazon, Netflix, Disney+ - pre-installed. They promote their use when the TV is being setup. People need to know about it as an option. I have never seen an ad for PlayStation Now, nor Microsoft's option either. I would wager that most consumers who may be interested in cloud gaming, probably have no idea it's a thing even available to them, or may think it's going to be complicated to setup.
The reference to at 2600 was a joke BTW. I know that gaming - indeed all media - being served remotely is the inevitable future. It's just a staggeringly long way off. Over ten years. Folks saying that the next generation of consoles will be the last are not looking at the barriers to widespread, affordable internet. The reason there is an expansion plateau, with some locales get faster and faster and others do not is because of very expensive logistics of deploying infrastructure. There is a perceived need, but cost recovery makes investment unappealing. That's not going away.
It's not flourishing because we are at the start of it. Even with netflix there was a long period of time where people would still have discs sent to their homes. What's worse while netflix was actively pushing a streaming future the market leader bought up and then sat on the streaming technology for games. I am sure if Sony pushed their streaming service as hard as MS is currently doing they would have had some sucess in the last decade.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
True. I think it's coming for sure. There are too many advantages to Cloud gaming once they overcome the latency/speed issues. Even if it only gets to the 80% of gamers in big cities it will take off. Might be 10+ years though, so at least one more generation of consoles. I intend to try it myself on GamePass with something like Pentiment at some point. I think MS is aware that of the 30 million GP users only 30k use xCloud (.1%) Then another technical milestone will be overcome and it will be 1%. Then another and it will be 3%, then 5%, then 10%. Then one day we'll wake up and realize that 50%+ GP users (probably 50 million by then) are using xCloud to game, because it's just as good and cheaper and less hassle than having to get actual hardware.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
It's not really comparable to Netflix, however. There's no latency or control issues with watching a movie. There might be buffering issues if you have really bad internet but then you can just download it to watch locally (you can do this with Amazon Prime Video so I'm assuming you can do it Netflix).
There will be some segment of the gaming population that is tolerant of this latency WRT control and the whole input -> visual feedback loop but I question whether that's larger than the segment that cannot tolerate that latency. I know some on this forum can tolerate it in some game types more than other game types. I can't tolerate it personally.
So, while it's good enough for some people, it's certainly not good enough for others. I'm personally skeptical that it will ever be tolerable enough for the majority of the gaming population that isn't into casual match-3 games or gatcha games.
Could it flourish, possible. Could it flounder? Also possible. Could it just limp along? Quite possibly.
Even if it were to flourish (meaning make a meaningful profit), I doubt it'll supplant physical gaming machines in a large enough number to threaten their existence.
Regards,
SB
Netflix when it first started streaming in what 2007 had a lot of issues. It's not fun watching a movie that kept getting pixelated . Of course move down the line 15 years and you can stream netflix on everything at great quality even 4k
MS has only just entered this market and outside of sony all the competitors are also relatively new to this. They are just going to keep getting better at this and there are a ton of genres of games that latency doesn't really matter
I have used Geforce now and xcloud on multiple games and haven't had any issues with it. I'd actually argue that my wife would get extremely good use out of it , more so than a steam deck. Evil Genius 2 is on it as is factorio. heck just put civ 6 on it and she'd be happy as pie and would just use her surface pro to play or even a tv if it was on there. I don't think I would want to play call of duty or street fighter on it but there is plenty of content out there that doesn't need low latency and that is before you even get to the segment of people who would be just fine with the additional latency that the service would layer on.
Personally I think cloud streaming will be a great add on. You have a playstation or xbox or heck even geforce subscription and you go off on vacation. Lets say disney (I go too often) and boom its pouring rain. You are stuck in the hotel all day. Welp I have my work laptop with me or my streaming stick or my phone . let us sit and play some games.
and yes packing a controller or two is going to be more practical than packing a ps5 or xbox series x to take on a trip with you
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
It is already challenging to increase the available bandwidth between two points (server and user), but latency is vastly more complex to reduce and can require the completely replacement of kilometres of connections and doing that is both disruptive and expensive.