Google on Tuesday announced its plans to upend the $140 billion gaming industry dominated by Sony and Microsoft with a new streaming service called Stadia that allows people to play high-end games without purchasing expensive consoles or computers. Google said this is a "game platform for everyone."
All of the legwork to render those games is done in Google's cloud.
Google explained a bit how it will work. It said that, if someone is watching a video of a game on YouTube, they could hit a button that says "play now" and jump right into playing the game themselves in as fast as 5 seconds. Today, gamers have to buy physical games or wait, often hours, for the game to download before they can play. Even then, they also need special hardware to play those games.
Google says Stadia will run on "any screen type" but, at launch, will work on desktops, laptops, TVs, tablets and phones. There's no box at all. "With Stadia, the data center is your platform," Google said. A gamer can start on one platform and then pick up where they left off on another devices, which means you might game on your computer and then continue on your phone when you leave the house.
Google will face lots of headwinds in the space, however. One expert who spoke to CNBC said Microsoft is better poised to offer a streaming videogame service, since it already has relationships with publishers in place and a strong fan base of gamers who buy its consoles. Microsoft's upcoming competitor is called xCloud.
"I'd favor Microsoft's chances given it too has the scale and technology but has been successfully engaged in the gaming industry via Windows and XBox for over 30 years," Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy told CNBC ahead of Google's event.
Amazon is also reportedly building a cloud gaming service that could eventually run games like "New World," which is developed by its in-house studio but currently only works on PCs.
This news is developing please check back for updates.
from Top News & Analysis https://ift.tt/2HviMNU
No comments:
Post a Comment