Gaming news outlet Kotaku has made a bold claim regarding the console gaming market. They state that they've heard from reputable sources that Google plans to get into the gaming industry. Though details are a bit fuzzy, Kotaku maintains that Google will be using a streaming platform as its focus, and there will be a specific hardware that'll be sold. They also plan to acquire some game developers in order to create games for the platform.

Buying out game developers isn't an uncommon occurrence--another large company, Microsoft, took 5 companies under its wings shortly before E3 without much of a deal, and Google itself is no stranger to buy-outs. It's definitely feasible. According to journalists in the industry, Google also had a large presence at this year's Game Developer's Conference, meeting with companies in order to discuss the potential for a streaming-based video game service, codenamed Yeti at the time.

In terms of streaming for video games, there's two major services out there that gamers might know of: GeForce Now and PlayStation Now. Both of these let players utilize any sort of supported hardware to play games. It also lets players experience titles that might not run normally on their computers, or running them without storing the download on a hard drive, and removing the need to buy discs or carts.

That, of course, brings in the long-fought debate of digital over physical, and the industry's recent push towards a potential all-digital future. Plus, Google is known for starting projects and then leaving them to rot on a whim. If any company could manage to pull off such a feat, it would be Google who could possibly make it work.

What are your thoughts? Would you want a digital-only streaming alternative to play your games on, or do you prefer having your own hardware and physical games? Do you think the infrastructure is there to support it? Will Google follow through?

Source

 

[pedro702]

Good, hope google does well.
They can give us the free online that Nintendo is taking away and actually market the fact that their online is free.

whats the point of free online if your gonna pay for the game subscription itself? since all they do is game streaming you will have to pay for every game to stream lol.

 

[mgrev]

The real facts behind this leak is that TES V: Skyrim Very Special Edition is coming to google home

 

[Midori]

I'm not seeing an OUYA in this. OUYA was a start-up company that presented itself with the idea of making game publishing accessible to everyone, hence they chose Android for their OS. It was a good concept honestly, just poorly executed. I think if they had better quality control of the titles in their store, and if they managed their money better, they could have had something. Google is in an entirely different position though. Google has the funds and the staff to make a capable gaming console.

I personally think as time goes by, and people become more accepting towards digital assets, the chances of game streaming being profitable will be more likely. Right now it's doubtful

 

[chartube12]

I don't think they're even allowed to continue expanding their fiber network.
.

Nah. It isn't they are not allowed to expand further. They just realized it's too late. 5G cellular data is the future. 5G is going to slowly kill off wired connections due to it's extremely low latency, wired may never reach it! There is highly good chance one of the next two xbox models (systems?) will have 5G built in, since Microsoft once to switch to cloud gaming. Won't be surprised it the xb gaming cloud also ends up on the next version of the swtich and Microsoft OS.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I am interested in this, not the streaming aspect of course that can generally be dismissed as a bad idea... input lag in bad locations wifi lag, lcd lag, it all adds up to a bad time.

However I will say this a company could in theory do game streaming this way, if the hardware is powerful enough to do all it's own rendering and running code and all the good stuff, but only download the levels like as needed... If a person never makes it level 5 in game X no need to download level 5 until they hit some point in level 4 that says "Hey looks like he might complete this level, start level 5 download"

That would be a form of streaming I could tolerate.

After that, if it's powerful like a Shield TV 2 I would for sure at least consider buying it.

 

[Xzi]

Nah. It isn't they are not allowed to expand further. They just realized it's too late. 5G cellular data is the future. 5G is going to slowly kill off wired connections due to it's extremely low latency, wired may never reach it! There is highly good chance one of the next two xbox models (systems?) will have 5G built in, since Microsoft once to switch to cloud gaming. Won't be surprised it the xb gaming cloud also ends up on the next version of the swtich and Microsoft OS.

Sounds like a bunch of theorycraft. 4G is nowhere near good enough for a home internet connection, I don't expect 5G to be that much better. Nor do I expect any of the big ISPs to move away from wired since they already spent the money on infrastructure.

 

[Taleweaver]

I'm inclined not to believe it. The sources might be right, but that would mean google is investigating it, that's all. They'll come to the same conclusions as in this thread, probably before even announcing anything.

 

[samljer]

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Gaming news outlet Kotaku has made a bold claim regarding the console gaming market. They state that they've heard from reputable sources that Google plans to get into the gaming industry. Though details are a bit fuzzy, Kotaku maintains that Google will be using a streaming platform as its focus, and there will be a specific hardware that'll be sold. They also plan to acquire some game developers in order to create games for the platform.

Buying out game developers isn't an uncommon occurrence--another large company, Microsoft, took 5 companies under its wings shortly before E3 without much of a deal, and Google itself is no stranger to buy-outs. It's definitely feasible. According to journalists in the industry, Google also had a large presence at this year's Game Developer's Conference, meeting with companies in order to discuss the potential for a streaming-based video game service, codenamed Yeti at the time.

In terms of streaming for video games, there's two major services out there that gamers might know of: GeForce Now and PlayStation Now. Both of these let players utilize any sort of supported hardware to play games. It also lets players experience titles that might not run normally on their computers, or running them without storing the download on a hard drive, and removing the need to buy discs or carts.

That, of course, brings in the long-fought debate of digital over physical, and the industry's recent push towards a potential all-digital future. Plus, Google is known for starting projects and then leaving them to rot on a whim. If any company could manage to pull off such a feat, it would be Google who could possibly make it work.

What are your thoughts? Would you want a digital-only streaming alternative to play your games on, or do you prefer having your own hardware and physical games? Do you think the infrastructure is there to support it? Will Google follow through?

Source

Streaming only pretty much guarantees it wont compete.
But then again people seem to let google just get away with anything.

 

[Hi-Dro]

Google should just stick to being a search engine and little services like email and blog. This business venture is a waste of money.

If you think that's just what google do then um... well ....... you're very, wrong....... it isn't.
Google is frantically trying to get his dirty mits into or buy out every technological industry on this earth, I wonder what a company with endless amounts of money and information is planning on doing with those resources ?
Also interestingly enough the big heads at google don't even allow their children access to all the technology that we take for granted, they even send their kids to tech free schools Hmmm wonder why ?

Anywho this idea sounds absolutely terrible I'm not on board with this, personally I'm looking forward to Xbox's next console flop and eventual and inevitable end of microsoft in the console industry.
If Nintendo and Sony are the only players in the market the competition between the 2 (old rivals) would create some stella games I guarantee it.

 

[Kvnrdrguez]

I honestly don't think this would be a very successful project if it came out, because not only would it cancel out all potential customers that don't have a good internet connection, its also paired with Google's tendency to quickly drop projects in a heartbeat.
I wouldn't put too much hope in this, and neither should anybody else, imho.