Verizon Is Quietly Testing Its Own Netflix-Style Cloud Gaming Service

Megalith

Megalith

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Yet another corporate behemoth has embraced cloud gaming: The Verge has learned that Verizon is recruiting players for “Verizon Gaming,” a new game-streaming service currently being tested on the NVIDIA Shield and destined for other Android devices. Titles such as Fortnite, Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, Battlefield V, and Destiny 2 are evidently available.

For Verizon, cloud gaming could be a showcase for 5G broadband both in the home and on the go. The low latency and fast data speeds of 5G could solve for many of the hurdles that game streaming apps — such as Sony’s PlayStation Now — are dealing with today. And it’s easy to envision Verizon Gaming being an add-on to the company’s home internet or mobile data services.
 
I'd like to know why so many companies are exploring cloud gaming? Nobody in their right mind is going to pay a subscription fee to play single player games with lag and image compression loss. Not surprised "recruiting players" are given a $150 Amazon gift card for wasting their time with Cloud Gaming. You'd have to pay people to use this service.

Indeed, in response to a few complaints from testers over lag and a poor early experience, Verizon says that it’s currently focused on getting the fundamentals right before worrying about game selection. “This trial is primarily focused on performance,” the Verizon Gaming team recently wrote in an email to participants.
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No chit. I guess fiber optics can't fix latency due to distance.
 
I guess "gaming" is going to be the new "sci-fi" on TV
 
All these companies just want to kill off gaming it seems. Gaming as a service can go get fucked along with MT.
 
I bet it will be a be a bunch of old flash games except that you have to pay for it
 
google, amazon and now verizon all dabbling in this. I wonder why the sudden interest
 
DukenukemX said:
I'd like to know why so many companies are exploring cloud gaming? Nobody in their right mind is going to pay a subscription fee to play single player games with lag and image compression loss. Not surprised "recruiting players" are given a $150 Amazon gift card for wasting their time with Cloud Gaming. You'd have to pay people to use this service.


No chit. I guess fiber optics can't fix latency due to distance.
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I'm going to be honest with you...

5 years ago I said that when Netflix switched from DVD delivery to streaming it was a bad idea. I thought most couldn't handle the bandwidth for it... I was completely wrong.

Not saying it will be the same with gaming. No clue to be honest. I'm just saying that if you think you know what the public will do, you won't always be right.
 
illli said:
google, amazon and now verizon all dabbling in this. I wonder why the sudden interest
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the new buzz word "cloud gaming" whatever. Verizon snatched up yahoo and now they are in on it. I'm FPS all the way and wont touch this.
 
Cyraxx said:
I'm going to be honest with you...

5 years ago I said that when Netflix switched from DVD delivery to streaming it was a bad idea. I thought most couldn't handle the bandwidth for it... I was completely wrong.

Not saying it will be the same with gaming. No clue to be honest. I'm just saying that if you think you know what the public will do, you won't always be right.
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Netflix makes sense cause people like me were doing what Netflix did back in 2001. DIVX is a hell of a drug. Was, now it's H.264 but whatever. I was making 700MB movie rips that you can easily stream on a DSL internet connection with no problem. I think even Bit-Torrent got into that action with their own Netflix like service.

Cloud gaming is not the same thing. Nobody plays games from their computer to another device. The tech is there but why do it? Bandwidth is certainly not an issue as you seem to think but it's latency. Bandwidth does not equal latency. Latency is just the time it takes to get data from one place to another not how much data like bandwidth.

Also it's anti-consumer as hell. You do realize that 2019 is going to be the year that gaming hardware will be cheaper than ever, despite Nvidia and AMD's $700 graphic cards. People will game just fine on $100 RX 480's or GTX 1060's. Nobody still cares about 1440p or 4k. Old games are cheaper than the monthly fee for cloud gaming.

Cloud gaming is created from people who don't play games. EVER! Not even once.
 
DukenukemX said:
Also it's anti-consumer as hell.
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This is the thing people aren't really seeing yet. Unfortunately I think the argument will boil down to latency and thus keep the glimmer of streaming games alive so long as connections improve (okay speed of light, ISP relays, home networking makes latency unavoidable) but they can't wait to slap the 'good enough' sticker on and call it a day.

As you said if consumers actually thought about how much control that gives companies over content, pricing & control (in future im sure we will see safe spacing culture effect how information is curated) then they wouldn't be so keen to jump in. That said, all they have to do is call it 'Smart gaming' and that ought to get enough people enrolled.
 
GNUse_the_force said:
This is the thing people aren't really seeing yet. Unfortunately I think the argument will boil down to latency and thus keep the glimmer of streaming games alive so long as connections improve (okay speed of light, ISP relays, home networking makes latency unavoidable) but they can't wait to slap the 'good enough' sticker on and call it a day.
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People who push cloud gaming are people who never played a game in their life. I can't stress this enough cause as a gamer you know that something with lag is going to stress you the hell out. Are there games that will totally work on Cloud gaming? Sure, games like Persona 5 I can see being a none issue on a cloud service but Persona 5 sucks anyway. First Person shooters with a keyboard and mouse is going to be a nightmare. Anyone who's ever used a mouse that had a delay due to the system being bogged down or something slowing it down knows that feeling is just horrible.

Megaman 11 would suck, Dark Souls would suck, nearly any good game is going to suck when played on the cloud. Whoever is hoping this will work is looking for the good enough sticker to slap on it and wait for the massive monthly income to poor in. Why? Because they know gamers spend a lot of money, especially those who are sick and tired of owning multiple pieces of hardware. They offer one device to play all your games at most likely not an affordable price. I fully expect it to be at least like $20-$25 per month.
As you said if consumers actually thought about how much control that gives companies over content, pricing & control (in future im sure we will see safe spacing culture effect how information is curated) then they wouldn't be so keen to jump in. That said, all they have to do is call it 'Smart gaming' and that ought to get enough people enrolled.
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Something like this would only work if there's a benefit to the consumer, which there isn't any. Netflix vs Blu-Ray, well duh Netflix won cause Blu-Ray movies back in 2006 were like $50-$60 and Netflix did DVD quality at best for $8 a month. Cloud gaming has no benefits what so ever but lots of disadvantages. I guess you could argue you don't need to own the hardware which makes sense for consoles but not for PC gaming, but right now a PS4 is like $200 brand new which is basically a years worth of cloud gaming. It doesn't make sense for PC gamers cause PC's do more than just game. Don't know about you guys but my PC does a lot more than just play games, plus a decent gaming PC is like 3 years of any given cloud gaming service.

More importantly you don't have a choice where you buy your games which to me is a big problem cause hardware is cheap compared to buying games. I don't pay $60 for a game since Diablo 3, and that was a big mistake to me. Especially as a PC gamer I have lots of choices, plus with piracy I do try before I buy. Soon the PS4 is going to be old and you'll be able to pick up a PS4 for $50 and the games are going to be like $3 per game. As a PC gamer I can run emulators and even mod games like Skyrim. These people are crazy to think I'll give that up for their cloud services.

Course some idiot is going to step in and say that it's better than paying $2k for a PC. Nobody pays $2k for a PC. I payed $200 for my 8 core Ryzen and $200 for the RX 480 I own. I payed $60 for the motherboard and $140 for the ram, plus I'd say $200 for storage. About $55 for the PSU and $30 for the case. People don't typically do what I do and would probably spend no more than $500-$600 on a PC. Either way it's better than playing it with latency and image compression.
 
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Cyraxx said:
I'm going to be honest with you...

5 years ago I said that when Netflix switched from DVD delivery to streaming it was a bad idea. I thought most couldn't handle the bandwidth for it... I was completely wrong.

Not saying it will be the same with gaming. No clue to be honest. I'm just saying that if you think you know what the public will do, you won't always be right.
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Netflix had the wherewithal to see what was coming. No one wants to miss the next wave. Technology advances, especially on the network side lately, very quickly. The investment they are putting into this is pocket change that could turn into mountains. Seems to me this is more making sure that they are on the forefront than being left behind in the model streaming does become feasible.
 
Verizon doesn't exactly have a great track record of other services. (Or any other cell phone provider for that matter). They will probably be over priced and have old crap on them.
 
I just remembered nvidia also has some kind of cloud gaming service too, "geforce now" I believe it is called
 
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