What is cloud gaming? How does it help me? Why do I need it? The questions that will be answered in this post.
Rumors are being thrown around the PS4. With talk of it being a cloud only platform.
Although an unlikely scenario, this concept does put out an interesting point. With broadband getting ever faster, is cloud gaming the future?
It is defiantly not out of the question. We are starting to see more and more 'download only' games and the ability to get the latest titles downloaded straight to our consoles. Begging the question, do we need the humble old Blu-Ray/DVD drive to have an enjoyable experience?
Seemingly, we do not even need to download a game to enjoy it. Onlive have developed a system that runs the whole game entirely in the cloud. Meaning, no hard drive to store data, no disk drive for those disks, just an Ethernet port and a Wi-Fi card.
From personal experience, the Onlive system is slick, simple and can keep up with the game play. My internet is nothing special and I was able to sit on my very low spec laptop and happily play Saints Row 3 very happily.
But, what Onlive, and any cloud gaming setup, offers that tops anything and everything else is much cheaper games. As well as the game being with you instantly when ever you want it. Nothing is worse than having to fork out forty odd quid for a game in the shops, and having to Que for it to. With cloud gaming, the only Que that you ill see is that of games in your 'to download' list.
So, with a strong argument cloud gaming appears to be ahead - But, what of the good old solid state disk? The way that has been with us for so long. Well, don't give up on disks yet.
What would we do without our stacks of carefully selected games? How would we lend games to people? How would we carry on? To some, the game stack is a rite of passage for any gamer. Having stacks of games higher than, well, a tall person is what some of us like. Not to mention, how would we lend OUR games to OUR friends. You can't pre-own a cloud game.
As well as this, some games are rather large (in terms Gigabytes), so could take a rather long time to download. Some may not be happy with this sort of wait. But, consider how much plastic and paper etc. is used to make all of the games above. If we don't crack down on it soon, there will be no plasic and paper to use so cloud gaming would come in and take over.
To conclude this debate, it is clear that cloud gaming will take over. It is just whether it will take 2 years or 10 years to do so. Cloud gaming is here to stay, are we ready for it yet? No, but it is not far off.
Thanks for reading
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iOS 6 - What's New, Well...Not Much
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