Bagel seed
Veteran
All that for $380 mil sounds like a steal. And 300 datacenters sounds impressive.
Sony Computer Entertainment Acquires Cloud Gaming Company Gaikai For $380 Million
- Thread starter Persistantthug
- Start date
I couldn't stand the lag introduced by just having the wrong setting on my television, which equated to only one or two frames at 60fps. Network lag would drive me crazy. It's like watching a movie where the video is slightly out of sync with the audio.. it completely ruins the experience.
So... NOPE. Not even gonna bother registering for it, for whatever they offer on the new system.
So... NOPE. Not even gonna bother registering for it, for whatever they offer on the new system.
Yeah, probably won't make sense for fast paced games.
*if* they go through with this, they should grab gamers by genre. JRPGs and all those Japanese games that didn't make it to the west may be a good start. Puzzles and smaller games that can be downloaded progressively should be ok too.
*if* they go through with this, they should grab gamers by genre. JRPGs and all those Japanese games that didn't make it to the west may be a good start. Puzzles and smaller games that can be downloaded progressively should be ok too.
There are a lot of games that won't work, I love platformers and I can't see a cloud gaming serving these games, most of the dexterity is about jumping at the edge of a ledge, any lag would make it impossible to time the jump. Same for any fighting game which are about reflexes. Adventure games, RPGs and MMOs would be perfect though.
Hey, maybe they'll finally announce Everquest 3 and it'll be on gaikai?
Hey, maybe they'll finally announce Everquest 3 and it'll be on gaikai?
But what, say, if you were playing a fighting game online. And the actual gameplay is hosted on the same server (needs only one copy of the game running after all, with only input streaming in from two locations). Then it should be quite similar to playing online currently?
Personally I don't believe something like GaiKai would scale well for everything, and there would still be benefit for users to have their own box playing games at home. But I could see a larger context where much more casual gamers could play any game they want on a service for x amount of hours per month, or something, where others actually buy full games and play them on their own device, etc.
Personally I don't believe something like GaiKai would scale well for everything, and there would still be benefit for users to have their own box playing games at home. But I could see a larger context where much more casual gamers could play any game they want on a service for x amount of hours per month, or something, where others actually buy full games and play them on their own device, etc.
It's way more annoying to have server lag because your input doesn't have immediate consequences on your screen. You wonder if you actually pushed the button or not as you're waiting for your input to register. It makes combination moves much more difficult. Imagine your character needs to jump over an object and perform an action at the apex. Yes you could figure out the timing with practice, but it blows for immersion.
You'd think so but actually if you do it for a while you stop noticing. There have been all type of studies about this how humans adjust to lag and then all the sudden if you remove it people get confused becuase they think the action happened before they pressed the button. So yes it will be annoying for people at first but as long as it's consistant people will stop noticing it at all.
People manage today with TV latencies in the 100ms range, my projector is actually more than that.
For multiplayer games the overall latency can actually be lower, because with a centrally hosted server you only pay the cost of a trip to the backbone, and not the cost to another end user which is considerably higher. Does however mean the client can't hide that latency as efficiently.
FWIW I actually don't think centralized gaming servers are a good idea, I just can't see how the math works out. Iocal hardware is cheap, I can't see how hosting servers in a datacenter with the associated costs works out to be a better model.
The one advantage I can see is not having to move games to the local client, and as connections get better and the remote experience improves, so does moving the games get easier.
For multiplayer games the overall latency can actually be lower, because with a centrally hosted server you only pay the cost of a trip to the backbone, and not the cost to another end user which is considerably higher. Does however mean the client can't hide that latency as efficiently.
FWIW I actually don't think centralized gaming servers are a good idea, I just can't see how the math works out. Iocal hardware is cheap, I can't see how hosting servers in a datacenter with the associated costs works out to be a better model.
The one advantage I can see is not having to move games to the local client, and as connections get better and the remote experience improves, so does moving the games get easier.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
It does only in certain cases. You cut the latency a bit due to not having to resolve weapon hits (client/server model where hits are resolved on the host computer) across the entire trip from player to player in certain cases. But other things like player movement won't be impacted. In that case you just add an intermediate step. Player moves -> server sees it and relays it -> Other player sees it. Has the same or potentially higher latency than Player moves -> other player sees it.
The biggest impact is just that you are less likely to have suboptimal game hosting with a centralized server. Not having to worry about whether the host player has a crappy internet connection connection or a crappy wireless router or just crappy wireless signals if they are using wireless in a location with a crowded spectrum.
Regards,
SB
They claim over 50 million unique gamers played a month.. http://gaikai.com/
Server coverage
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/11/gaikai-will-be-fee-free-utilize-300-data-centers-in-the-us/
300 Datacenters in US
Ok, now they have to setup PS3-like servers and manage them in all 300 data centers. ^_^
For MP games, the network latency will be perceived differently from input + TV lag right ?
Even if the latency is consistent but slower, people may complain anyway. Look at LBP and KZ2.
But of course. It's usually a partnership with the ISPs, or backbone operators.
Hosting servers in a datacenter is not (at all) expensive... you also don't need 1 console per player, in truth 1 per 5 players sounds like overkill - but you still charge customers $n/month.
Basically take a PS3 "ultra slim", remove the case, hard drive, PSU, fans, blu-ray, usb, bluetooth etc.
The cost per blade should rather small, ditto the power consumption. Depending on how many you plan to make, in theory the RSX output could be put directly into an encoder...
There is another fun option - sell a small addon to make your *own* PS3 work like that (plugs into the USB & HDMI ports and connects to the PS4 via Wifi).
deathindustrial
Regular
Hopefully they make the PS4 Home client a Gaikai client instead. Seems like a perfect match for the tech.
They have to deliver a "reasonable experience" without any controller and over a wlan or mobile network? Good luck with that!
They can't !
...which is why they have to set up the servers right in (or close to) the ISPs' network to avoid WAN traversal.
It won't be as good as having the hardware yourself, but it should not hit the worst case WAN scenario.
Mobile network is another can of worms altogether.
