https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/16/18628090/microsoft-sony-cloud-gaming-ai-partnership

Should be interesting. The Sony fanboy world must be going nuts.

Has to be them teaming up to compete against Google and Amazon for the future of cloud-based gaming.

Sine poena nulla lex.

hph6203 said:

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Mine isn't. Google and Amazon don't have the business investment in gaming that Microsoft and Sony do. Gaming is already a pretty sizable portion of Microsoft's business and it's probably nearly or is the majority of Sony's. Microsoft has more data centers around the globe than Google does and it's by a pretty wide margin. Amazon may be developing a cloud gaming service, but they're way behind where Microsoft and Google are right now. In other words Microsoft, and especially Sony, need to succeed. Google merely wants to succeed.

Not to mention the business relationships that Microsoft and Sony have in the industry.

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Amazon has 3 times the cloud biz that MS has. I don't give a damn how many data centers MS has. That doesn't correlate to bits and service.

If Bezos and Google are in it, you'd be foolish to bet against them.

MS is a crap company that still does nothing but wait until others, including their partners, innovate, then they try to steal the tech and market share.

That's why they lost the mobile platform, search, browser, etc

And so begins the (video) Game of Thrones....

My guess is that Google's Stadia has Microsoft and Sony concerned. I believe in ten years the home console, as we know it, will be phased out for cloud gaming. Let Microsoft, Sony, and Google process the game on the backend while the user streams it to their TV. It cuts down on costs to the company hosting the servers because it's cheaper to maintain in the long term over manufacturing hardware at a loss.

Amazon hasn't even announced their platform, let alone public trials of it. Google has done public trials, but has never been in the gaming industry before and a game has to be purpose built for their platform, because it runs on a Linux based operating system. Microsoft's plan is to use an array of Xbox consoles, so if it works on Xbox it works on Project xCloud. They will have public trials later this year that will likely be announced at E3. Google is the first mover, Microsoft is the second mover, but with better infrastructure. Amazon has the data center advantage, but they're behind the other two in development as far as we can tell.

Microsoft and Sony already have captive audiences in the form of 130 million console owners. To advertise all they have to do is notify their customers that to play the newest game on the newest console is to turn on their PlayStation 4 or Xbox One S and do a free trial of their game streaming service.

Look no further than the Epic Games Store vs Steam to see how competitive the marketplace is to get a game on a platform. Companies would be crazy to shirk Microsoft and Sony, but ignoring a platform that requires financial investment to enter with no established history? Not that crazy.

You also seem angry.

hph6203 said:

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Amazon hasn't even announced their platform, let alone public trials of it. Google has done public trials, but has never been in the gaming industry before and a game has to be purpose built for their platform, because it runs on a Linux based operating system. Microsoft's plan is to use an array of Xbox consoles, so if it works on Xbox it works on Project xCloud. They will have public trials later this year that will likely be announced at E3. Google is the first mover, Microsoft is the second mover, but with better infrastructure. Amazon has the data center advantage, but they're behind the other two in development as far as we can tell.

Microsoft and Sony already have captive audiences in the form of 130 million console owners. To advertise all they have to do is notify their customers that to play the newest game on the newest console is to turn on their PlayStation 4 or Xbox One S and do a free trial of their game streaming service.

Look no further than the Epic Games Store vs Steam to see how competitive the marketplace is to get a game on a platform. Companies would be crazy to shirk Microsoft and Sony, but ignoring a platform that requires financial investment to enter with no established history? Not that crazy.

You also seem angry.

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Not angry.

Providing the environment to port the game to their platform will be priority number 1 with Google and Amazon. They will make it easy.

We have streaming services that already have to deal with numerous hardware such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Roku, the smart TV vendors, etc.

I don't think portability is the hurdle it used to be. And Android and iOS are major game platforms right now.

The thing MS and Sony have going for them is their HMI device. But that's not the market that's being targeted. Google and Amazon's vision is to allow the game to played on any non console device.

This is from an October 2018 article from Investopedia:

"This generation is also likely to see fierce competition from smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS. Console revenues have already fallen behind Android and iOS gaming revenues. Many analysts predict that this may be the last generation of home gaming consoles. Also, PC graphics are expected to surpass console graphics.

Think you misunderstood my point. The market for these services are going to be built from the traditional gamer out to the broader market, not from the broader market to the traditional gamer. Google has to garner attention from that market through marketing, whereas Sony and Microsoft can convince that consumer of the viability of their product by simply putting a "Stream Now" button on a game that the player is currently downloading to their console. It's not about that being the only platform that these services live on, but it's about that platform being an excellent advertising vehicle without it coming across like advertising.

That gamer also has a catalog of games they've already purchased from Microsoft and Sony's stores that they'd have to abandon to switch to Google's service. Basically it means that Google's service either has to be radically better or radically cheaper to supplant Microsoft and Sony and I just don't think that's going to be the case.

hph6203 said:

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Think you misunderstood my point. The market for these services are going to be built from the traditional gamer out to the broader market, not from the broader market to the traditional gamer. Google has to garner attention from that market through marketing, whereas Sony and Microsoft can convince that consumer of the viability of their product by simply putting a "Stream Now" button on a game that the player is currently downloading to their console. It's not about that being the only platform that these services live on, but it's about that platform being an excellent advertising vehicle without it coming across like advertising.

That gamer also has a catalog of games they've already purchased from Microsoft and Sony's stores that they'd have to abandon to switch to Google's service. Basically it means that Google's service either has to be radically better or radically cheaper to supplant Microsoft and Sony and I just don't think that's going to be the case.

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I agree to a point that Google is going to need some AAA titles at launch in order to even draw interest. They'll need a Borderlands 3, Madden, or Final Fantasy type game (or all 3) to get people to try it.

A free trial also wouldn't hurt either

Cassius said:

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My money is on Google and Amazon.

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Google and Amazon will not partner up as they compete in the cloud computing space. Amazon Web Services versus Google Cloud Platform.

Cassius said:

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hph6203 said:

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Mine isn't. Google and Amazon don't have the business investment in gaming that Microsoft and Sony do. Gaming is already a pretty sizable portion of Microsoft's business and it's probably nearly or is the majority of Sony's. Microsoft has more data centers around the globe than Google does and it's by a pretty wide margin. Amazon may be developing a cloud gaming service, but they're way behind where Microsoft and Google are right now. In other words Microsoft, and especially Sony, need to succeed. Google merely wants to succeed.

Not to mention the business relationships that Microsoft and Sony have in the industry.

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Amazon has 3 times the cloud biz that MS has. I don't give a damn how many data centers MS has. That doesn't correlate to bits and service.

If Bezos and Google are in it, you'd be foolish to bet against them.

MS is a crap company that still does nothing but wait until others, including their partners, innovate, then they try to steal the tech and market share.

That's why they lost the mobile platform, search, browser, etc

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Wrong.

That might be Microsoft historically....but not since Satya Nadella took over.

Cassius said:

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This is from an October 2018 article from Investopedia:

"This generation is also likely to see fierce competition from smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS. Console revenues have already fallen behind Android and iOS gaming revenues. Many analysts predict that this may be the last generation of home gaming consoles. Also, PC graphics are expected to surpass console graphics.

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LOL....we're not talking about weak little mobile games that you play on your phone or tablet here. We're talking about full HD/4K next gen games that require huge video and processor power with plenty of memory. I really don't care about Android and iOS gaming "revenue" in this conversation as these companies have no concept of what's necessary to develop and run AAA next gen games that are the wheelhouse of Sony and Microsoft.

Think he means there aren't going to be companies developing huge AAA games if they can make more money with Angry Birds 12 or whatever the new mobile game is.

FTACO97 said:

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Cassius said:

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This is from an October 2018 article from Investopedia:

"This generation is also likely to see fierce competition from smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS. Console revenues have already fallen behind Android and iOS gaming revenues. Many analysts predict that this may be the last generation of home gaming consoles. Also, PC graphics are expected to surpass console graphics.

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LOL....we're not talking about weak little mobile games that you play on your phone or tablet here. We're talking about full HD/4K next gen games that require huge video and processor power with plenty of memory. I really don't care about Android and iOS gaming "revenue" in this conversation as these companies have no concept of what's necessary to develop and run AAA next gen games that are the wheelhouse of Sony and Microsoft.

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Google and Amazon have no concept of whats necessary to develop and run next-gen games?!

I'm laughing hard at that. They have an army of the best software engineers and architects on the planet!

And the leadership of both believe they do have what it takes! That's why they are doing what they are doing.

As far as Microsofts business practices, you're wrong. My company is a MS Gold partner. I am very familiar with how they operate, still. The only reason they've tried to be the least bit innovative is because Google, Amazon, Apple and others forced them to be. Up until a few years ago, they spent a huge amount of money and effort trying to leverage their base to take share from Google, at the expense of their partners. They finally waved the white flag, on search and on the mobile platform.


You must work for Microsoft. That's the only way your responses makes any sense.

PooDoo said:

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Think he means there aren't going to be companies developing huge AAA games if they can make more money with Angry Birds 12 or whatever the new mobile game is.

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That's not what he means. He's talking about the platforms being more viable than a console for game consumption. I agree in the long run with that assertion (I.e. the device won't matter, the service will), but disagree with his assertion that Google and Amazon can suddenly become major players in the game development business just because they have excellent software engineers and architects. Game development is more art than science and Google and Amazon, generally speaking, are not artful companies (No Man's Sky comes to mind, incredible tech with very little soul at launch). They like to pretend they are, but they're not.

He looks at this as if it's simply a software problem, it's not. The software problem is a decent sized chunk of the issue, but I have faith in all three major cloud computing companies (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) to be able to solve that problem. The differentiator is going to be services and games, I have zero faith in Google or Amazon to do that unless they start buying up game developers and even then they could screw it up (see: early Xbox One game development that has largely screwed them for this entire generation).

Microsoft and Sony have established relationships with third party devs and established relationships with gamers via back catalogs of purchased games that these consumers are going to want to continue to have access to. I don't see the other two players strong arming those away, because it's likely going to be years before you see full scale AAA games from Google or Amazon if they haven't already put massive resources behind game development and if they had we'd know more about it by now:

hph6203 said:

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PooDoo said:

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Think he means there aren't going to be companies developing huge AAA games if they can make more money with Angry Birds 12 or whatever the new mobile game is.

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That's not what he means. He's talking about the platforms being more viable than a console for game consumption. I agree in the long run with that assertion (I.e. the device won't matter, the service will), but disagree with his assertion that Google and Amazon can suddenly become major players in the game development business just because they have excellent software engineers and architects. Game development is more art than science and Google and Amazon, generally speaking, are not artful companies (No Man's Sky comes to mind, incredible tech with very little soul at launch). They like to pretend they are, but they're not.

He looks at this as if it's simply a software problem, it's not. The software problem is a decent sized chunk of the issue, but I have faith in all three major cloud computing companies (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) to be able to solve that problem. The differentiator is going to be services and games, I have zero faith in Google or Amazon to do that unless they start buying up game developers and even then they could screw it up (see: early Xbox One game development that has largely screwed them for this entire generation).

Microsoft and Sony have established relationships with third party devs and established relationships with gamers via back catalogs of purchased games that these consumers are going to want to continue to have access to. I don't see the other two players strong arming those away, because it's likely going to be years before you see full scale AAA games from Google or Amazon if they haven't already put massive resources behind game development and if they had we'd know more about it by now:

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This.

Google and Amazon aren't going to be able to suddenly start developing AAA next-gen games out of the blue. They've never done it and have no clue what it takes to develop them, plus they have no experience with the hardware necessary to run these games and how to deploy that hardware in a data center to run these over the cloud.

Microsoft and Sony do. The notion that anyone could possibly knock them off the top of the gaming world, especially companies that have never participated in that space, is a flight of fancy.