The early days of video gaming, of Pong and Pac-Man, are long gone.
video game companies now offer games with impeccable graphics and
wide-ranging storylines and playing options. Consoles are now able to
recognise the movements of the player and use them in the game. Games
are moving ever further away from linear playing styles and give players
a great deal of choice about how they want to play the game. One of the
more recent developments in the gaming world is the advent of cloud
gaming. A great deal of recent technology news has focused on this and
what it might mean for the video game industry. But what actually is
cloud gaming? And what are the potential advantages and disadvantages of
this new method of playing video games?
Cloud gaming is a form of
online gaming that utilises cloud hosting in order to work. You may
already play a number of multiplayer games online through your
computer's internet connection or through Xbox Live or the PlayStation
Network. However, this still involves owning a physical copy of the game
and a console to play it on. The difference with cloud gaming is that
the game itself and the processing power needed to play it is all hosted
in 'the cloud'. In order to use it, all you need is an internet
connection and cloud gaming service. The games are directly streamed
onto your computer, tablet or console and the powerful servers used by
the cloud gaming provider will carry out all the rendering and
processing necessary. Your button presses are sent to the cloud, which
processes the information and sends back the game's response. It is
essentially very similar to the video-on-demand services on offer, such
as 4oD or iPlayer, but for games. You do not have to own a physical copy
of the game in order to play on it.
Cloud gaming does have a
number of important advantages. It is instant, you do not have to go out
and buy a physical copy of the game nor do you have to spend time
downloading it. The game is already there and instantly playable through
your internet connection. It also reduces the need for computers with
high processing and graphical capabilities.
Your computer does not need
to have the highest specs in order to play the latest games; the cloud
servers will do that for you. This can also potentially reduce the cost
of gaming, you will not need to splash out on expensive equipment and
the cost of cloud gaming packages is negligible when compared with the
cost of actually buying the games. Another advantage of cloud gaming is
that it brings some elements of platform independence, through using
this service you can play a PC or a specific console game on an android
or iOS tablet.
There are, however, some disadvantages to cloud
gaming. The problem of 'ownership' is one of them. Many potential users
of cloud gaming services dislike the idea of not actually owning a copy
of a game they have paid. If the company goes out of business or the
servers go down, you are left with no game, even though you paid for it.
The services on offer at the moment are still fairly new technology so
there may also be a number of 'teething problems' - technical issues and
the like - that users may have to put up with. Another disadvantage is
that if cloud gaming really took off the second hand game market would
completely disappear. Finally, the fact that gaming from the cloud is
such a new development means that the services may not yet be available
to everyone in all areas of the country. It is possible too that
multiplayer games may be lacking in other players to compete against.
Is
gaming in the cloud part of the future for video games? It definitely
has the potential to become widely used and popular as it offers a great
deal of advantages over current methods. However, as of right now, the
United Kingdom does not have the internet structure to be able to fully
utilise the cloud for video games. The average speed of broadband is
around 8Mbit/s for cities and 3Mbit/s for rural areas.
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