In a year when there’s going to be a great deal of
attention placed on new entrants to the video streaming market (Apple, Disney,
Time Warner, etc.), the surprise breakout winner in cloud-based entertainment
in 2019 could actually be game streaming services, such as Microsoft’s Project
xCloud (based on its Xbox gaming platform) and other possible entrants.The idea
with game streaming is to enable people to play top-tier games across a wide
range of both older and newer PCs, smartphones, and other devices.
Given the tremendous growth in PC and mobile gaming,
along with the rise in popularity of eSports, the consumer market is primed for
a service (or two) that would allow gamers to play popular high-quality gaming
titles across a wide range of different device types and platforms. Of course,
game streaming isn’t a new concept, and there have been several failed attempts
in the past. The challenge is delivering a timely, engaging experience in the
often-unpredictable world of cloud-driven connectivity.
Most importantly, however, are software advancements
that can enable technologies like split or collaborative rendering, as well as
AI-based predictions of actions that need to be taken or content that needs to
be preloaded. The strong growth in game streaming services that are less
hardware dependent may imply a negative impact on gaming-specific PCs, GPUs and
other game-focused hardware in fact, the opposite is likely to be true. The
gaming service will give them the opportunity to play (or continue playing)
those games in situations or locations where they don’t have access to their
primary gaming devices.
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