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The Praiseworthy · Dec 12, 2014

TheSpoonyBard said:
Take a look at how we watch movies now, as an example. I was only 5-10 years ago when we still used DVDs to watch movies, and now we all basically stream or download them.

Movies size aren't the same as games, plus there's something called input lag that effect your gaming experience.

Most of the world doesn't have good internet connection for streaming like the middle east for example.

Sony isn't crazy to throw away all these customers and money.

For exaple most of us download movies and music now but yet there are still physical forms, why? Because they like money and there are always those who are collecters and want physical forms only, like me and my friends.

All this fancy talk about the future and streaming and digital only is just a talk, When it comes to reality they can't risk the customers who wants physical forms.

Plus:

CartridgeBlower
I swear every article seems to neglect the fact that consoles are literally flying off of shelves at a record rate.

This.

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

I see a lot of issues with this becoming a reality.

Will gamers suddenly give up their rights to trade, lend and sell their games? They didn`t do it this generation, so why do it next?

How many times have PSN been down lately? That would brick single player games completely.

People still have bandwidth capacity.

The infrastructure is neither fast or stable enough. This can`t happen until the Internet is at least as stable as electricity are today.

Even if the infrastructure was good enough, the combination of physical and digital games will always be the best way to sell the most amount of copies. How is grandma going to buy little Timmy a christmas presant if games only can be streamed trough Gaikai? We still sell a huge amount of physical PC games and music CD`s because of this. Streaming only will ruin this. Buying a digital gift card is NOT the same.

influentzar · Dec 12, 2014

consoles are dying!

after you all done saying that, our King Gaben will thrives with *cough*Steambox*cough* and *cough*BigPicture*cough*

Cave Johnson · Dec 12, 2014

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you're going to need beefier hardware for every next-generation game to be released? If so, wouldn't this mean the cloud gaming would be more likely to increase cost year after year just to provide hardware to run said games?

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

TheSpoonyBard said:
I don't get the responses on this thread. Just because cloud gaming hasn't worked out as desired in the past (because of infrastructure, consumers etc) doesn't mean it won't happen in the future. It's great that Sony sees it in the horizon and is preparing for it now.

Take a look at how we watch movies now, as an example. I was only 5-10 years ago when we still used DVDs to watch movies, and now we all basically stream or download them.

Streaming a movie can`t be compared to streaming a game at all. Not even close.

fedexpeon · Dec 12, 2014

These people are insane if they think the US can sustain a fiber infrastructure throughout its nation within anytime soon. Maybe in 20 years before 1/3 of the nation will have fiber.
The US is like a 2nd/3rd world country in term of good ISP with decent speed.
A fricken city like Austin, ranked in the top 5 technology city in the nation, can't even get fiber until later this year.
And the cost right now for crappy internet speed is insane when compared to EU countries.
Internet speed should be a human right issue, but after the CIA report, you can tell that the US government don't care about it and rather allow the corporate suits to keep control on the internet.

Yeah, good luck Sony. You are crazy.
I hope MS will uptake Sony in NA/UK in a few months on console sales so that the PS can maintain their cloud support over in the EU/JP while MS continues to go with hardware based gaming.

jholmes · Dec 12, 2014

CartridgeBlower said:
I swear every article seems to neglect the fact that consoles are literally flying off of shelves at a record rate.

I swear every article seems to neglect the fact that Sony's bonds are rated as junk, the company is hemorrhaging money and activist investors are trying to split the company up. Interestingly that's all more relevant to what Sony does next than cherry-picking how the PS4 sold in one slice of time in the United States.

Stealthcobra · Dec 12, 2014

playstation now will never stream ps4 games....unless you're doing remote play with a ps4. So i'm lost as to why people are concerned for the ps4

SatoAilDarko · Dec 12, 2014

Streaming games, like movies, is the eventual future. Why spend hundreds on a console when you can get something sub-$100? Why sell games to consumers who can sell subscription services like Playstation Plus?

Obviously the technology isn't there yet and won't be for at least a decade but Playstation Now is only the start.

JordanN · Dec 12, 2014

Sony's not stupid. If they were diving head first into cloud gaming, why did they react so fiercely to the Xbox One's original message?

I don't fault them for researching into it. Just keep supporting PS4 for the time being since that's something too big to ignore.

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

If this happens, how will they price their games? If they take away gamers ability to sell their games, they have to compete against Steam. Gaikai streaming are horrible, and that`s just for renting games.

Mooreberg · Dec 12, 2014

Cave Johnson said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't you're going to need beefier hardware for every next-generation game to be released? If so, wouldn't this mean the cloud gaming would be more likely to increase cost year after year just to provide hardware to run said games?

The whole concept sounds insane as a replacement for mass market game consoles until/unless something really miraculous happens with average broadband speeds in major markets. It isn't like the whole planet became South Korea.

DarkoMaledictus · Dec 12, 2014

Yeah not going to happen in some time. Internet speeds are not there and that would just cut all rural areas without high speed.

gundamkyoukai · Dec 12, 2014

There will most likely be a PS5 but after consoles might be dead.

CartridgeBlower · Dec 12, 2014

jholmes said:
I swear every article seems to neglect the fact that Sony's bonds are rated as junk, the company is hemorrhaging money and activist investors are trying to split the company up. Interestingly that's all more relevant to what Sony does next than cherry-picking how the PS4 sold in one slice of time in the United States.

I was talking about the entire industry, not just Sony. But nice try. Seems the only person who's cherry-picking is you.

Qassim · Dec 12, 2014

CartridgeBlower said:
I swear every article seems to neglect the fact that consoles are literally flying off of shelves at a record rate.

Consoles don't have to be selling poorly for them to be made obsolete and then replaced.

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

How popular is Onlive?

BBboy20 · Dec 12, 2014

Well, we aren't expecting consoles by the time the PS9 is out.

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

Phil Spencer doesn`t agree with Sony`s future, for now?

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/xbox-one-will-not-be-last-physical-console-says-microsoft

Mohonky · Dec 12, 2014

Not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. PC still sells physical but I would be surprised if clients like Steam arent the bread and butter for PC sales.

Music and Movies have already gone this way with numerous internet based services. People dont want to be shackled down to having to buy physical media, they like the idea that they can watch / listen to what they want when they want on a subscription based service. It works out cheaper in the long haul and gets people access to vast libraries of titles.

Gaming will inevitably go in this direction, the main components preventing it from happening right now is bandwidth and input lag. Once those are sorted, dont be surprised to find that you no longer buy games so much as buy sunscription services.

Potentially you have positives like not needing to upgrade hardware as its done via the server side. Access to a publishers current and back catalogue.

I wouldnt have a problem with this at all.

SRTtoZ · Dec 12, 2014

Pack it up PS4, you're done.

Zabojnik · Dec 12, 2014

Master race won, I guess.

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

Mohonky said:
Not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. PC still sells physical but I would be surprised if clients like Steam arent the bread and butter for PC sales.

Music and Movies have already gone this way with numerous internet based services. People dont want to be shackled down to having to buy physical media, they like the idea that they can watch / listen to what they want when they want on a subscription based service. It works out cheaper in the long haul and gets people access to vast libraries of titles.

Gaming will inevitably go in this direction, the main components preventing it from happening right now is bandwidth and input lag. Once those are sorted, dont be surprised to find that you no longer buy games so much as buy sunscription services.

Potentially you have positives like not needing to upgrade hardware as its done via the server side. Access to a publishers current and back catalogue.

I wouldnt have a problem with this at all.

Yeah, but Netflix, Youtube, Spotify, +++++ haven`t replaced music and movies. They are options. The industry still sell a bunch of physical music media, and therefor it still excist.

The Artisan · Dec 12, 2014

Bollocks said:
Sony without game consoles? Might as well shut down the whole company

uhh, yah. ps5/6/7 plz

JordanN · Dec 12, 2014

Gamezone said:
If this happens, how will they price their games? If they take away gamers ability to sell their games, they have to compete against Steam. Gaikai streaming are horrible, and that`s just for renting games.

If gaming went all digital, I imagine it could play out like cable TV.

Sony would be the "games provider". You have access to different channels. Each channel is run by a Publisher. You would subscribe to a channel and get to play all the games you want from them.

There would be some benefits. For example, you wouldn't have to pay $60 for every game anymore. There could also be an option to "rent" channels and access all those games there.

The obvious downside is you might not be able to own the games. The only thing you would possibly own is the save file, and even that might be stored in the internet, as opposed to your TV.

Roshin · Dec 12, 2014

Weevilone said:
I'm eventually going to be forced to play the 2 lifetimes worth of backlog I've accumulated.

Yes, this is exactly the justification I needed. I'm not really wasting money on Steam sales. I'm preparing for the future where my consoles vanish into the Cloud.

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

JordanN said:
If gaming went all digital, I imagine it could play out like cable TV.

Sony would be the "games provider". You have access to different channels. Each channel is run by a Publisher. You would subscribe to a channel and get to play all the games you want from them.

There would be some benefits. For example, you wouldn't have to pay $60 for every game anymore. There could also be an option to "rent" channels and access all those games there.

The obvious downside is you might not be able to own the games. The only thing you would possibly own is the save file, and even that might be stored in the internet, as opposed to your TV.

My cable bill is $60 each month. That`s the price of a new game.

alstein · Dec 12, 2014

Darklord said:
Yeah...except it isn't the future because most countries around the world don't have the infrastructure. Until blazing fast, uncapped internet is at like 95% coverage it won't take over.

That's why this won't work. As long as Comcast and AT&T can bribe Congress it's not happening. Google needs to outbribe those companies.

vesvci · Dec 12, 2014

Makes sense...gotta keep moving forward.

injurai · Dec 12, 2014

Well the PC experience isn't changing. Whatever comes after PC's will have to compete. Once the console market is gone you can be sure the PC market will move into what is left of it.

otaku-asia · Dec 12, 2014

Not sure if cloud gaming is the future but I also fear the end of consoles... hopefully not in my lifetime though. ^_^

Ravage · Dec 12, 2014

Ionic said:
It's strange seeing Sony pursue this and VR so readily. Streaming is basically the antithesis of VR.

It's obvious that PS4 will continue to be the main focus this gen, not PS Now. They are just preparing the groundwork for the future.

PS5 will most likely focus on VR and other latency-sensitive applications. Everything else would probably be delivered via PS Now, especially mainstream non-core games.

Hahs · Dec 12, 2014

Moores law:

This is going to happen sooner than later - it's in inevitability - tech get's better every year.

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

Hahs said:
Moores law:

This is going to happen sooner than later - it's in inevitability - tech get's better every year.

It should happen later, rather than sooner.

Sephiroth_VII · Dec 12, 2014

The Beard said:
When your apartment is the size of a phone booth, yeah it probably does.

People bring this up a lot, but size is hardly the main issue. The problem is that rather than visit each other's homes like young westerners usually do, young Japanese people mostly hang out at school and in clubs at the school. When they leave school and enter the workforce, hour-long commutes are the norm, as well as long work hours and little time off, so once you're home, you are busted, and it's much more convenient to do your gaming during your commute. Then, on your days off, you usually have other things to do than gaming, like being with your family or going out, since you have precious little actual time off. With the declining birthrate, younger children are becoming rarer, and they are pretty much the only ones(other than avid gamers) who can justify spending time on consoles.

At least that's my perspective living here.

Earthpainting · Dec 12, 2014

Gaming as an online streaming service is every publisher's wet dream. It gives them total control over all the data, the cheating and modding scene would get a massive blow because all you're sending is button inputs and you have no code to reference. Always-on DRM is a guaranteed part of the package. Naturally the newest titles would get priority in their QOS loads, so if you want you could hinder older annualised titles to incentivise moving to the new hotness. If your game is a bit of an embarrassment and may damage your brand, you can remove it from the streaming services altogether and pretend it never happened. Best of all, you can use the instant nature and low hardware requirements of streaming video as a legitimate excuse to push it on the consumers.

So yeah, this is clearly where gaming is heading. However we are nowhere near this yet. Online infrastructure is still lacking in many areas of the world, and bandwidth caps are still too common. While I absolutely see this happening in my lifetime, technology grows so rapidly that it's incredibly hard to accurately predict its path.

wapplew · Dec 12, 2014

Judging by latest NPD number, Sony need to copy MS strategy.
Delay everything in Q1 Q2, release them at Q3 2015, don't forget to cut price too.

LouisaFerre · Dec 12, 2014

I'm really not a fan of software as a service so I'm hoping cloud gaming doesn't get too big. I know it'd be far off either way, but it's not really pleasant to think of having content that's exclusive to services like that.

Memorabilia · Dec 12, 2014

Hahs said:
Moores law:

This is going to happen sooner than later - it's in inevitability - tech get's better every year.

Wanna bet?

US internet infrastructure is HORRIBLE and nowhere close to where it needs to be to make this a reality. It will take a massive public works program costing into the hundreds of billions (similar to how we built the highway system and dams in the 50s) to bring net access for most Americans up to spec.

Meanwhile, our Congress is dysfunctional and filled with know-nothing corporate lackeys pushing the nonsense philosophy that you can somehow cut spending as a way to prosperity. Never happened in history and never will. Congress can't agree on whether the sky is blue, let alone pass a sweeping infrastructure bill to get the US caught up to Europe and the Asiatic Rim. And the only thing the lunatic wing-nuts will spend money on is subsidies for billionaires and weapons boondoggles for defense contractors so we can perpetually bomb foreign brown people in the name of "security".

And, yet, some people think we are going to wake up in a year or two and somehow magically have gigabit internet speeds to most American households. Lol If you believe that I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you for a great deal....

herod · Dec 12, 2014

They can't even get it lag free in the same room. Valve and Nintendo are better in my flat.

As far as I know there is no networking advance on the horizon that will reduce latency enough short of building a data center in every town and city. While I'd imagine this isn't unrealistic for generic services Sony require specialist hardware for this. It's not happening. Ever.

Klart · Dec 12, 2014

It doesn't hurt to be prepared.

DryvBy · Dec 12, 2014

Without a console in my living room, I'll just go back to PC gaming. I'm not paying $60 a pop for digital games ever.

Terrible_Majesty · Dec 12, 2014

what happens when they decide to pull the plug on their servers?

Gamezone · Dec 12, 2014

Terrible_Majesty said:
what happens when they decide to pull the plug on their servers?

The same as with every dying MMO.

Doctoglethorpe · Dec 12, 2014

Their assumption that because music and movie streaming is popular means game streaming will also be popular is a huge mistake. They are overlooking the very important issue of input delay, something that only effects the latter, but will probably alone cause game streaming to never really catch on, at least as long as the internet is delivered the way it is today.

GillianSeed79 · Dec 12, 2014

All the servers in the world don't mean shit if the online infrastructure of the U.S. is still shit. Maybe if Google fiber had a monopoly or something but until then you are going to be dealing with a vast majority of the population putting up with shitty ISP service from corporations like Comcast and Time Warner. Also, no offense, PSN isn't exactly the most stable of online services.

Servbot24 · Dec 12, 2014

bluexy said:
Not sure this is going to work out for them. The infrastructure isn't there yet. The server hardware/software isn't there yet. Customers aren't there yet.

That's why they're working on it. That's all the article is about.

Miles Quaritch · Dec 12, 2014

Where MS leads, others follow.

Seriously, hough this does make sense in the very long run, it won't truly be workable until everyone has very capable internet connections that offer both great download and upload speeds and we're still a long way from that being a reality.

Another stumbling block will the push to end net neutrality. That could also become a huge obstacle in any game streaming future.

Triggerhappytel · Dec 12, 2014

I'd estimate that there will be a PS5 before this is ready to happen. However, it's wise to invest in this now, and be prepared to able to make it a slow, soft transition.

Percy · Dec 12, 2014

Sony games has no consoles.

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