I hate to admit it, but streaming games will be the future of our hobby.

I didn't think that it would happen for a while, but now with Gamefly launching their

Netflix of Games I can see it happening. The games so far are last gen, but they'll get better. All you need is a smart tv and a controller.

I for one would not like playing like that as I would miss my console, but I can see this happening by next gen. What do you guys think? Will streaming games take off and if so will you embrace it or move to PC?

:)

 

Lag or just hit detection ?

it's sporadic for me...some games I'm on the ball.....other games it's like I should consider a different hobby...lag might be a factor, I notice it's worse when my wife's streaming Netflix on our blueray, while the kids are simultaneously streaming youtube
vids one kid on their Xbox, the next kid streaming on his ipad, and the last streaming on the laptop ...all at once, and there I am trying to play Battlefield in middle of it

 

Just cant decide if itll be worth it

^^ Good point. I will admit I am a huge Treyarch fangirl, but I don't worship CoD lol. It's fun and all but IW CoDs are pretty much downhill. I'm sticking to 3arc for future games. I don't mind people hating on CoD, but if its someone who just complains
about everything in the game then well you gotta take a deep breath and remember its just a game! Don't know how some people do it. I guess complaining is a hobby for some.

 

"Will streaming games take off and if so will you embrace it or move to PC?"

If streaming games does take off, you'll likely be able to do it on your PC as well...

 

^^ Yes, that is true, but I think they would keep the PC crowd happy as they like to upgrade etc. If we were streaming it it would all be the same.

 

I think if it does take off there will still be a split, not everyone would embrace, I probably wouldn't because my gaming habits are a lot different to my TV habits and content is readily available for my gaming whereas over here TV takes ages to go to
DVD so Netflix has practically cut out that wait time.

Also what happens to all the extra content they now make and flog off? Will the games just stream as the full collectors edition? Plus what about all the physical collectors content that some gamers can't help themselves, but to get? This makes me think
that they would never stream the newest releases.

 

Good points Digital. I'm the same I do not own a cable box but I do use Netflix for the kids.

 

This may begin to take off in the coming years but there'll definitely be bumps in that journey.

For starters, the question of ownership will come up. Would you want a Netflix-style model where you can pay monthly and access everything, or do you still like to own the game yourself? For CDs and DVDs, most people seem to be okay with not owning the physical
product, hence the rise of Netflix, Spotify and their contemporaries, but games seem to endure in that regards - anecdotally, there seem to be far more people unwilling to part with the idea of owning the physical game than was true of CD/DVDs. We saw that
at the beginning of this console generation when Xbox wanted to go the frictionless, online-only mode and that was vociferously and overwhelmingly shouted down.

Then we have digital ownership, which straddles the middle ground. You rely on being able to download the game, but after that it sits on your hard drive and it's for all intents and purposes yours and you can play it when you want.

There'll be more players involved, in terms of infrastructure, especially for some third-party streaming service that might be running on Xbox Live or PSN. You're much more dependent on the online services staying online if they go offline, as they have
been doing, then you're really out of luck. At least with the current model you can play your disc games and digital games (if you're on your Home console) and enjoy the singleplayer aspects. With streaming... nothing.

And what do you do if there's only one streaming service for your platform and they lose rights to a game or decide to not renew its licence? Can you never play that game ever again? From the achievement perspective, let's say you were playing a game and
were at 500/1000 Gamerscore - or from the story point of view, halfway through the campaign - and the game is removed from the streaming service. If game ownership is no longer a thing and you can only stream, are you okay with never ever being able to finish
the game?

For game developers, how do they get paid? Is it based on minutes streamed of their game? If 1 minute streamed = $1, this would be supported by indie devs I imagine but the AAA studios would hate it. It would mean each dev is paid based on how much their
game is actually played - which sounds like a perfect ideal - but that bears its own issues.

~~~~

Streaming can be cool. It can give us access to many more games, we could try out entirely new genres, or take a risk on a game we would never have bought, and we can get that access quicker with no download times, just some initial buffering. But it has
its hurdles to overcome; we need to become comfortable with offloading our games collection and not owning it, we need to vastly improve infrastructure to support it and we (the industry) need to figure out how money is extracted from that system and paid
back to developers.

 

So many great games out there yet people on the Forums remain obsessed with stuff that "might" happen one day.

Waste of time really but it's their time to waste.

 

It's a discussion. I don't think discussions are a waste of time. If I did I wouldn't post on forums.

 

I welcome anything that substantially decreases the cost of my enjoyment of this hobby, even if I don't partake on it.

I'm ok with Gamefly, I'm ok with EA Access and, assuming all the ideal conditions are met for such a service to prosper, I'll be ok with this. I'll decide what to do when such a service materializes.