Vapourware Google Stadia - "a game streaming service for everyone"

[DalekFlay]

I assumed Google would sweep this under the rug quietly and let it die, like tons of other stuff they tried but I guess this time there's too much money involved to stop.

Microsoft and Amazon wouldn't be pushing hard for this too if tech companies didn't see it as the future. Way too early for Google to give up a possible piece of that pie.

 

[Fedora Master]

MS and Amazon are well known for their good business decisions these days. It is known.

 

[DalekFlay]

Dude if you're right and game streaming goes nowhere I'll be one happy boy. I think it's fabulous optimism based on niche preferences though.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Don't know how good their business decisions are, but Amazon seems to be doing pretty good these days.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

It didn't work ten years ago so why would it work now?
The Cloud has the potential to transform certain aspect of business technology. However entertainment is definitely not one of them.

This reminds me of "VR". A few diehards won't give up on it, but its long dead. The general public have spoken.
The general public have also delivered their verdict on Stadia and Cloud gaming in general.

It won't be coming back.

But by all means - all those who think my opinion is retarded - give some counter examples. Once the public is decided they don't change their minds.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The reason it's not taking off is because you still have to pay for the games. If you can afford to regularly buy $60 games, you can typically afford to just buy your own PC(or game console)

 

[Dexter]

It didn't work ten years ago so why would it work now?

This reminds me of "VR". A few diehards won't give up on it, but its long dead. The general public have spoken.

Say something that makes sense followed by something incredibly dumb to keep the balance?

 

[Dexter]

The reason it's not taking off is because you still have to pay for the games. If you can afford to regularly buy $60 games, you can typically afford to just buy your own PC(or game console)

The reason why it fails is the same as it was 10 years ago or when I made this post a year ago: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...rvice-for-everyone.126618/page-4#post-6057599

It's because it's retarded, nobody asked for it and it doesn't work. It's not because of the "business model".

Stadia may have failed partly because of that (it would have failed anyway though), but they're not the only service out there. GeForce Now is near death for lack of support and other reasons. The Steam Streaming service is close to irrelevant and everybody even forgot it exists. PlayStation Now is close to irrelevant even though it functions like your "Netflix for games" and even lets PC players play PlayStation games. There are close to 110 million PS4s out there and the service even works on PC and they barely have a million Subscribers after 6 years:


Compare that to VR where PSVR sold 5 million units despite being a relatively bad Gen1 experience with little software support, the Valve Index and Oculus RiftS/Quest being constantly sold out for months due to lack of being able to keep up with demand and scalpers successfully selling them for double the price:

See also the late news for Half Life: Alyx: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...tween-hl1-and-hl2.130792/page-34#post-6665997

What seems obvious if you put all this together is that there's great consumer interest for VR despite the initial cost of having to have a good console or PC and having to buy a separate Hardware HMD, even though it's in its infancy regarding going mass market and still lacking major software support while Streaming doesn't require extra hardware and effort, but nobody cares.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

GeForce Now is near death

Because it has no games.

The Steam Streaming service is close to irrelevant and everybody even forgot it exists

Not even remotely the same thing.

BTW, you seem really intent on convincing us that you made a good purchase. You bring it up when it has nothing to do with the topic at all.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

It didn't work ten years ago so why would it work now?

This reminds me of "VR". A few diehards won't give up on it, but its long dead. The general public have spoken.

Say something that makes sense followed by something incredibly dumb to keep the balance?

"VR" is dead. It doesn't matter that you are a fan. Maybe there are just about enough hardcore fans like yourself to keep it being buried. The sales figures tell you everything you need to know - that sales are dropping year after year.
I can dig out the market research, reports and data, if you really like, but its easy enough to find.

 

[Dexter]

"VR" is dead.

Says increasingly nervous man as all Headsets are sold out for months and sell out within just minutes every time after stock becomes available again, just a month after the successful release of a major VR Blockbuster title.

The sales figures tell you everything you need to know

Exactly.

Spoiler

https://www.roadtovr.com/steam-survey-vr-headset-growth-january-2020/

https://www.roadtovr.com/100-vr-games-exceeded-1-million-revenue/

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

"VR" is dead.

Says increasingly nervous man as all Headsets are sold out for months and sell out within just minutes every time after stock becomes available again, just a month after the successful release of a major VR Blockbuster title.

The sales figures tell you everything you need to know

Exactly.

Spoiler

https://www.roadtovr.com/steam-survey-vr-headset-growth-january-2020/

https://www.roadtovr.com/100-vr-games-exceeded-1-million-revenue/

Ok we get it, you are a VR enthusiast. Our fight is not with you. Its Cloud gaming we hate.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

He has to go into every thread and remind everyone that he does not regret spending $1500 on a tech demo

 

[Dexter]

He has to go into every thread and remind everyone that he does not regret spending $1500 on a tech demo

I didn't bring it up, and the one who did asked "all those who think my opinion is retarded - give some counter examples".

It's also an interesting example to compare with the success of Streaming services, since some people can't stop calling them "the inevitable future of gaming" or whatever, they came up again during the roughly same time period and one requires a much higher initial cost and extra hardware.

You go ahead and indulge in your butthurt about people buying things without asking you for permission though.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

He has to go into every thread and remind everyone that he does not regret spending $1500 on a tech demo

I didn't bring it up, and the one who did asked "all those who think my opinion is retarded - give some counter examples".

It's also an interesting example to compare with the success of Streaming services, since some people can't stop calling them "the inevitable future of gaming" or whatever, they came up again during the roughly same time period and one requires a much higher initial cost and extra hardware.

You go ahead and indulge in your butthurt about people buying things without asking you for permission though.

You haven't posted sales figures. Your first graph shows....a supposed 1% more people connected their VR through steam.
The other charts don't show anything about sales either - except the rather obvious point that the tally of units sold accumulate over time.

Now don't make me go and dig up the actual data, which as we all know, shows that VR sales are down year on year.

The reasons? Because the vast majority of people don't want to look like idiots while sweating into a cumbersome head contraption that makes them violently ill whilst not actually being remotely immersive as the misnomer "Virtual Reality" implies.

 

[DalekFlay]

It's also an interesting example to compare with the success of Streaming services, since some people can't stop calling them "the inevitable future of gaming" or whatever

It's honestly amusing to me that the sentiment of "corporations will try and force it and most people are too stupid or casual to care about the downsides" gets so much push-back on a site like the Codex. You guys have so much faith in the will and intelligence of the gaming community! It's kind of beautiful to see.

 

[Dexter]

You haven't posted sales figures. Your first graph shows....a supposed 1% more people connected their VR through steam.
The other charts don't show anything about sales either - except the rather obvious point that the tally of units sold accumulate over time.

Now don't make me go and dig up the actual data, which as we all know, shows that VR sales are down year on year.

Three of those graphs are directly related to Sales figures, the fourth indicates YOY growth in the sector and I'm starting to doubt the basic intelligence and reading comprehension of people here even Brofisting this drivel. You won't be able to "dig up actual data" because it doesn't exist, since neither Valve nor Oculus releases it. The SONY data is in what I posted. The most you could "dig up" are predictions like this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/671403/global-virtual-reality-device-shipments-by-vendor/

Other than that every single available PC VR HMD has been sold out practically continuously for the past 5-6 months since before Christmas and out of stock in hours when stock becomes available again to the point that it's hard to buy one right now as a gift even if you really want to and both the Oculus Quest and Valve Index have been huge successes.

It's honestly amusing to me that the sentiment of "corporations will try and force it and most people are too stupid or casual to care about the downsides" gets so much push-back on a site like the Codex.

It has nothing to do with the intelligence of anyone. They can try pushing something consumers inherently do not want that doesn't really work as it should till they turn blue, it's not gonna change the results markedly.

 

[Delterius]

"VR" is dead.

Says increasingly nervous man as all Headsets are sold out for months and sell out within just minutes every time after stock becomes available again, just a month after the successful release of a major VR Blockbuster title.

The sales figures tell you everything you need to know

Exactly.

Spoiler

https://www.roadtovr.com/steam-survey-vr-headset-growth-january-2020/

https://www.roadtovr.com/100-vr-games-exceeded-1-million-revenue/

Wait. There's millions of VR headset users. But the milestone revenue currently are games that made more than 1 million dollars. How expensive are VR games on average? If its 60 bucks a pop.... thats 16k+ sales to reach 1 million.

IS EVERYONE ELSE ON VR CHAT??

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Its interesting to look at old reports like this one, and see how off they are:
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries...e-promise-and-peril-of-immersive-technologies

Interesting how they build their projection, and completely misinterpret the risks and flaws. Not a mention of VR sickness. Can tell its been written by a suit without the faintest idea about tech.
Its probably types like this that present to Zuck, and why it keeps getting invested in.

Cloud seems to be in a similar vein. Nobody wants it, or has asked for it, yet its somehow the future. Why? Probably reports from suits like the above.

Reminds me of this scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ERuhks3GNk

 

[DalekFlay]

They can try pushing something consumers inherently do not want that doesn't really work as it should till they turn blue, it's not gonna change the results markedly.

"Hardcore" gamers on forums like this don't want it. I'm far from convinced the average gamer doesn't.

 

[Dexter]

They can try pushing something consumers inherently do not want that doesn't really work as it should till they turn blue, it's not gonna change the results markedly.

"Hardcore" gamers on forums like this don't want it. I'm far from convinced the average gamer doesn't.

The actual results and commercial "success" of such services in the real world so far point out to this being the case.

There are a lot of people buying Nintendo or SONY consoles (hundreds of millions) and playing on Mobile/Tablets (billions) whether one likes that or not, this is not the case for any "Game Streaming service".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

They're not successful because the service being offered is shit. It's like saying video streaming can't be successful prior to netflix becoming popular.

 

[Dexter]

They're not successful because the service being offered is shit. It's like saying video streaming can't be successful prior to netflix becoming popular.

OnLive, GaiKai, PlayStation Now, Google Stadia, GeForce Now, Project xCloud, Project Atlas (soon)...

How many more do you need before noticing a trend?

Btw. I don't remember many people saying "video streaming can't be successful" other than maybe the people personally invested in the movie and classic TV industry. In fact I'm sure many a person that downloaded TV series or movies on the Internet because the Launch was delayed by a year or two or even more in their country thought this would be a pretty good solution, but didn't have the capital to do it.

Who in their right mind thought "Hey this game is pretty cool, but I wish I could Stream it as a Live video from a computer on a server farm somewhere, so I have more compression artifacts and input lag!" on the other hand? This is and has always been a "solution" in search of a problem.
We've been over this and how this is different from Streaming playing a game before though:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...rvice-for-everyone.126618/page-4#post-6057076
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...rvice-for-everyone.126618/page-4#post-6057599

 

[Fedora Master]

They can try pushing something consumers inherently do not want that doesn't really work as it should till they turn blue, it's not gonna change the results markedly.

"Hardcore" gamers on forums like this don't want it. I'm far from convinced the average gamer doesn't.

You can peddle all kinds of shit to the average idiot but those people aren't dedicated customers. They'll try it out, realize it's bad (without quite being able to articulate why, because they're idiots) and then drop it after a few months.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

They can try pushing something consumers inherently do not want that doesn't really work as it should till they turn blue, it's not gonna change the results markedly.

"Hardcore" gamers on forums like this don't want it. I'm far from convinced the average gamer doesn't.

Yeah, that is hard one. I think the vast majority are mobile gamers. And I think mobile means casual as in, flappy bird. Most people don't want to play an intensive game casually, its just not how its done if you think about it.
For that reason alone, Cloud streaming isn't needed for the largest part of the market. With that said its difficult to say where its really needed. It just doesn't make sense.