A Year After Stadia's Death, PlayStation Appears Poised for Cloud Gaming Push

Look, if you told me ten years ago I'd one day he sitting in my bed with a controller in my hand streaming my PC and PS5 to an ipad at a flawless 1080p, I'd have never believed you. This stuff all has the potential to work great, with the proper hardware and network. It's gonna take time, but when this stuff works, it's pretty freaking awesome.

Gotta make sure ps3 games stream properly first. That latency is horrid.

Not as horrifying as that article image though. Can y’all call Russel Crowe? An exorcism is needed.

That thumbnail is like a nightmare version of the sun baby from Teletubbies.

It'll only take off if it grabs the younger generations interest I think, it's pretty clear that the vast majority of the current gamers aren't interested.

@RBMango all credit to @get2sammyb for this latest addition to the Jim Ryan collection of fine art

where are the games?

Gretchen! Stop trying to make cloud only gaming happen. It's not going to happen.

@nomither6 Last I heard, the games were in an unmarked grave just outside Walthamstow.

The day Playstation announces a digital only console will be the day I quit walk away from anything new the brand offers.

@Khayl No other person on this planet has studied Jim Ryan's face more than @get2sammyb.

So there’s a chance that new Remote Play handheld will be a PS cloud gaming handheld?

People need to understand that a lot of latency for cloud streaming is caused by the distance the data has to travel, and the traffic and route along the way. Download/upload speed will never fix that, as those actually refer to (in the most simple way) bandwidth in reality.

@SplooshDmg this is where Xbox has been positioning itself and it was made fun of, and yet in the courts it’s their cloud service that is being looked at as a back breaker for sony. Sony can NOT compete head on with Microsoft for servers and reach. Now thats not to say Sony won’t do great in bigger markets, but MS has reach and infrastructure to crush them on this front, notice MS push has been services and cloud, cause while they can’t outsell and out mindshare PS consoles they can win these area’s and for sure with the help of big games like COD and others. Sony see’s the writing on the wall they have to break free of their walled garden if they want the money and mindshare going forward. Cloud isn’t a fad, it’s not going away.

@Uncharted2007 hate to be this guy, but get your shoes on, the walk you talk about is the near future. By near i would guess 10 years or less. Cloud, digital, mobile and services are gaining and gaining and not going away. Before cloud millions and millions were happy to play Fortnite in its less refined form on mobile devices over PS and Xbox’s. Mobile dwarfs consoles in dollars and Sony and MS know the console market is shrinking in dollars made not players for years now. The stats are out there showing that, gen to gen consoles gross and profit less and less to mobile. Cloud and being on every device is the future and Jim knows that, hence he don’t want to lose COD to MS, so MS can distribute it out to millions of devices and Sony not having a say or be able to throw money at it to be on their service first. I say this as a proud console owner of over 25 years, but the writing is on the wall for us gamers that want yesteryear’s

It's mismanagement when they've been streaming since PS Now launched and didn't have dedicated positions if these are brand new and not just replacements.

@Green-Bandit People can say what they will, but cloud and remote tech exist and work. I'm sitting in bed right now remote playing Genshin from the PS5, even tho iPad has a native Genshin application. Why? The remote play is vastly superior than what my gen 9 iPad is capable of. I've had decent luck with cloud play. My PS3 games streamed on Premium are more than acceptable, but not perfect. I think I have a Sony data center pretty close to where I live. Local remote play so far is still king.

I spent a good while talking to NES today about my crackpot theories that MS is just already focusing on PC, mobile and cloud while their console just sort of flounders. I really think the ABK merger just changed their entire strategy over night. But we're talking almost 70bn here, that's some mad cash. The second they were like, "Okay, we've now established Microsoft Gaming, and Phil is the CEO of that... and not Xbox." I was like, "OH, I SEE. So that's what we're doing now."

Feels like Sony is lacking direction under this CEO and is shooting in every direction to see what sticks.

I mostly play offline games so cloud gaming isn't interesting for me, after stadia maybe the corpo people realize it isn't the future of gaming anymore lol.

@SplooshDmg You and NES are so fun to talk with, i really enjoy how involved ya’ll are, yet still cool gamers to chat and share ideas with, so i just want to say i have appreciated all your takes and thank you for talking with me. Yes remote play & cloud are for real, do i use them daily? No, but when i want it it is more than capable and i really appreciate that. MS knows that while console is big business and they want to be there, they can’t out do Sony and don’t need to at this point, Sony will off themselves if they don’t bring their games to more devices and in good working conditions on day 1 or quickly after. Young players want choices and don’t seem to care about sacrifices in performance from lesser devices, such as remote play, cloud and mobile. When they want something jaw dropping there is console and PC. I like this personally, game when you can and how you want, what’s not to like about that? It’s the future, not having discs and consoles needing a tv to play and enjoy a decent experience. I’m sure you know this but as much as $70 billion is for ABK, MS say’s they set aside more than that for deals if they were open and they aren’t done. MS isn’t playing around for content and play everywhere and anywhere. That scares sony, cause now MS have COD, and countless others , gaining money from all the different devices they will ship them to and i think it’s sick Sony was in court saying COD might sink them from lesser versions or content withheld, while paying for COD perks for years and killing off their shooters. MS finally decided to be in digital entertainment for the long haul and opened their wallet, and i think this will be hard for sony. While they will be A-ok in the console space, they will not be able to keep up in the cloud reach and content that MS and others have. Azure is a billion dollar invest meant to be sold for a reason cause while they can lease it and get content out they won’t have the CODs, WOW’s, Elder Scroll’s etc etc to distribute and profit off of as much as the holder to all those IP’s.

@wiiware Google is a far fetched example of something is ready, Google opens and closes projects so fast it’s awful. Hence they are chasing Apple and MS in everything minus search engine. Google throws things out there at their users and takes it away without little effort to make it better and help its fate. Now i will admit they built good cloud tech for stadia and it worked really well, but no games and dev’s weren’t trusting google to stick to something that don’t launch to success.

cloud streaming works xcloud is good stadia was good. the tech is there.

the problem is do people really want it? and the business model has to be there. people will not buy games if its streaming only that was stadia downfall

this is where Microsoft will dominate, Sonys game streaming runs on Microsoft's Azure architecture.

Microsoft will run xcloud and sonys cloud streaming this is the real hold up behind the activison acquisition

@The_Pixel_King So you’re the one responsible for Jim Ryan hiding the games!

Until my internet router is directly connected to server, running only my game, by standalone cable, this "cloud gaming" will always have more issues than fun.

Cloud gaming is an important piece of the future conversation whether we like it or not. I cannot speak for PlayStation but Xbox streaming in a browser is brilliant. I often play Fortnite with zero ping over such connection. At home I have 500mb but at my regular hotel it ranges from 120-50mb and that works really well as well.

@RadioHedgeFund totally agree, have 500mb at home and it works really well. Not that i use it much, but when i tried it to test it out and see if it worked, i was more than happy with the results. I pay $50 dollars for the 500mb, but if i wanted to up my bill to around $80 i could get a gigabit connection. I just dont see the need as i have my PS5 and Series X hardwired and they are lighting fast. But yes cloud is here to stay and will only get better and better as time and tech goes on.

Gives me hope that the new PS handheld will support cloud gaming, aswell as remote play, which is what I wanted. Obviously we still have to wait for official confirmation

@Uncharted2007 Well, there's a ps5 digital version... Just reminding

Back to drama queens who behave like moving into cloud is the end of gaming. It's an addition, but won't be the only option as long as you can make hardware profits with incremental improvements.
Also, PS streaming is fast and I have a mediocre internet connection. I can even use it when using my phone as a hotspot and I've been playing fast games like MK11.

The only problem is the lack of a solid mobile app, which for the future lead strategist... would be a pretty essential thing to have!!!

If there is any truth to YouTuber The Phawx's well argumented theory, the prospect of playing games natively on a possible Xbox handheld thanks to developing for series s (it's not "holding next gen back" but rather a fantastic little console if you're not a graphics snob) would be mind-blowing and a better alternative to mobile cloud gaming. Check the video.

https://youtu.be/GZ1_F50Gp18

Any future where gaming is more like the switch (docked and portable) is imo better than native 4k, ray tracing, 120fps overkill.

Don't you need to make some games first, Sony?

I'm not a fan of cloud gaming, especially with my horrible internet. But hopefully that will change as soon as Fibre comes.

I'll only use cloud gaming when I'm not near my console. If I was to go away somewhere and had access to WiFi then I suppose I would use it. I'd never buy a cloud version of a game though.

streaming doesnt actually need alot of bandwidth i remember streaming on psnow when i had 5.5mbps ADSL broadband and it worked fine i had no problems.

I never like cloud gaming and I will never support that business practice.

Good news! You don’t have to wait awhile at all to see how cloud gaming is revolutionising gaming. Xbox already have cloud gaming as part of gamepass - this has revolutionised accessibility… you can now try any game on gp within seconds without the need of downloading first to see if it’s for you or not. It opens up the doors for you to try anything! And it’s available a variety of devices you probably already have at hand!
Amazon have now added cloud gaming to your firestick…you can go from watching a film to loading up a game instantly without the need to even be a gamer let alone a console.
Even psNow held a decent connection for cloud gaming for awhile to let you try games first.

Cloud gaming is the future for all platforms. And one of the main reasons sony is so concerned about MS gaming growth. Mobile being the other kicker. Which you’ll soon be hearing more about Sony making more moves into.

@Yozora146_ And that 'extra' latency/lag can be so insignificant that it actually has no 'noticeable' impact and can actually be better than playing 'Locally' on some hardware - and certainly better than nothing as some hardware would NEVER let you play these games.

Take 'Doom' 2016 as an example. On Switch, it runs at a 'low' resolution - not even HD quality and capped to 30fps. Streaming could play the game with all the RT and visual upgrades, downsampled to 1080p and running at 60fps to significantly reduce the Lag/Latency to be much more 'responsive' than the 'Local' experience and lets not forget that most mobiles/tablets etc wouldn't let you play Doom locally if you wanted.

Cloud doesn't necessarily 'replace' the 'Premium' experience some Hardware can offer. Its a way to reach 'more' people who can't necessarily afford to spend $500+ on Hardware to play a game and/or 'compliment' the premium experience by allowing you to play your games anywhere on a variety of devices instead of always having to wait until you get home and can use your Console to play. A lot of Consoles are connected to 'family' TV's so instead of waiting for the Kids or Wife to finish watching something, you can stream games and play anywhere.

I have Game Pass Ultimate and a Series X. Of course EVERY game runs better locally on Series X, but streaming allows me to play ANYWHERE, to try games before deciding whether its worth 'waiting' for the game to Download and install etc. If I want the 'best' experience, I will 'download', but some games are 'perfectly' fine to play via streaming - I completed Several 'Indies' via Streaming - mostly because I quickly 'forgot' I was streaming and just kept playing until I finished the game.

Streaming is either an 'entry' tier experience, allowing more gamers to experience 'Premium' games without the 'Premium' up-front costs OR to compliment a 'fixed' Premium set-up to allow you to play 'anywhere'.

Hardcore, dedicated gamers that can afford to buy Premium Hardware, as I guess most on Sites dedicated to Premium Gaming like PushSquare are, would be 'unlikely' to accept Streaming as their 'MAIN' way to play. I bought a PS4 Pro for example to get 'better' visuals/performance despite it not offering ANYTHING the PS4 doesn't offer because I want the 'best' but many others were satisfied with the 'level' PS4 offers.

Forza Horizon for example maybe 'better' via Streaming with its XSX tier visual settings and smooth 60fps game-play versus XB1 30fps, much lower tier Visual settings, lower texture quality, more pop-in, lower vegetation density etc etc etc and 30fps latency/lag. Set your TV up wrong too and its 'much' worse latency/lag than streaming. Anything under 20ms is basically imperceptible to most humans - that's 2/100ths of a second...

I think that one of the things we might be missing with all this discussion of cloud gaming is that it has potential to actually innovate game design itself. The whole convenience thing and being able to reach non-console devices is one aspect, but as I understand it the technology can be leveraged to try out new game design elements. I think that’s what Kojima is working on with MS.

I’m not educated about the technical aspects of game development and honestly can barely change my WiFi password, but I’m thinking that a cloud game could evolve and change at its core depending on external circumstances and could lead to new game ideas. It’s like the next level of live-service. But maybe one in which a game world is more completely altered by the actions of the community. Since the game’s file itself isn’t on your device, it can be altered more immediately in real time rather than through downloads and updates. Or something like that… honestly I’m just guessing.

This was talked about a lot when Stadia was making waves, but compared to our fiends across the pond most of America has crappy internet, really crappy. I live in a decent sized city, almost 60,000 people and I pay for the "elite tier" of internet and its 14mbps( also known as 11 on average). Most of the time PS clod, and Xbox cloud would not run well. That's probably several million gamers in the US have similar speeds. Our internet infrastructure is hilariously behind Europe and Asia

@RadioHedgeFund The question is how big an audience is there for playing games regularly in hotels/on the go. Sure there's a small amount of people who appreciate that, but the vast majority don't consider that as something they need.
Take that strength away and there's not much left to sell streaming to people.

@Green-Bandit Agree which is why I'm saddened but also slightly grateful that the current generation of gaming is a shadow of what gaming used to be.

@Uncharted2007 i agree, i just hope we have consoles forever, all the other stuff can do its thing for those that want it. But i love consoles. I mean i suppose i could build a PC if i had to, but i really just want the big 3 to offer a console.

If that alleged handheld is part of a streaming initiative it makes sense. If it's just remote play it makes no sense. Right now though PS has a lot of catch up to do on the streaming front. They still don't have PS5 on it at all, and their policy of "no day 1" anti-GamePass rhetoric means their streaming service is automatically crippled compared to other services. Hopefully this "FTG" figures that out fast. And if that handheld is dropping soon, it's another missstep where the hardware is delivered possibly years before the functioning service to use it with. PSPGo all over again. Great hardware....starting about a decade after it launched.

Cloud is really fantastic, and local streaming is a big part of that, but I don't see the need for local hardware vanishing any time soon. There's too many players cloud doesn't reliably reach, and even for those it does, it's still clear it's not a wholly mature tech. I use Xcloud a lot, but it's still limited by the lack of most of the library available, and the lack of "instant resume" save states. And that's not a cheap set of features to include. I'd like to see real PS competition in the space though. They were the first ones there with PS Now, and they're the most absent from it today.

@Khayl Came for the news, stayed for the Jim Ryan fine art!

@themightyant The blips on SteamLink are pretty rare, but PS Remote is far less stable than SteamLink. But I sorta look at it the same way as online multiplayer. It's not particularly rare for multiplayer to experience lag, etc. In a sense, you just get used to it if and when it does happen. So I think in a way most of us are pretty adjusted to the fact that any game with an online element can experience issues, in this case it's just maybe a single player game.

I can stream 4K from the PC with little to no issue, I just don't because it's not necessary for my setup. I'm also not making an argument that it's a replacement for anything yet. It's simply a really cool feature that is offered now that people want to kill with fire simply because they either lack the network or know how to make it work correctly.

@themightyant I def think a lot of people just irrationally loathe it, where if they experienced it proper they'd be like, "Oh, games. I like those!"

I largely just remote play at home. I have this elaborate wall mounted iPad in my bed. I just swing the iPad arm over, sync a controller up, and play Steam games in bed. I know Android has a lot of 3rd party PS Remote apps, but I can't tell that iOS is the same. If they're there, I'm stupid and can't find them, but I also haven't looked super hard because I mostly just stream the PC. The PS Remote app works fine, it's just not anywhere near as good as SteamLink. SteamLink absolutely rules. I've had okay results with cloud, my PS3 games on Premium are fine, xCloud is okay on my iPad. But remote on a local network is still miles better and that's what I largely use.

I mean, I can appreciate that. It doesn't bother me, though. I've online games my entire life, basically. Lagging out in a raid on WoW used to just be a Tuesday ritual. But I get why it bothers others. I'm not the 'immersion' type. If the game blips out, it'll come back. No biggie.

@themightyant Yeah, the whole bed mounted situation is great. I have a command center entertainment setup, but I just like to chill in bed for an hour or so before I go to sleep. So, I can hangout with the wife.... and still play games and watch anime. Because... Priorities.

Yeah, my experience with cloud is still messy. Stadia has by far been the best experience I've had with it, and the tech behind GeForce Now seems really good. But xCloud and PS are very... Lacking by comparison.

I think the PS Remote app for iOS is just better than the version on Android. That happens a lot, I think. Looking at you... Genshin...

It feels like the manufacturers want this more than gamers.

I mean if it was the future wouldn’t we all be using it already. We have plenty of choice but people aren’t biting in numbers.

On pc its much better, console components aren't good enough for cloud gaming, at least another 15-20 years away . Sony should need to implement a system to sell digital content and all physical shops would need to disappear plus internet providers need better infrastructure

Never had a good experience streaming PS3 games let alone anything more advanced than that on PS Now. If this handheld device is real I hope it bombs, flops, fails, goes the way of the Dodo!

@tameshiyaku Its just the end of games being available and when you want, competitive pricing and ownership.

It's the push EA wanted people that are no longer customers but consumers we just get less and options to choose.

It because what we really want is that big corporations hold on to the market for 100%.
As we have seen before big corporations are totally to be trusted look at the US as great example.

A market controlled by a small group of big corporations the internet less choice higher prices no net neutrality. Amazon is the only option I some regions controlling prices or the profits of their sellers. The meat industry controlled by 3 big corporations. Ticketmaster was really a interesting look no service, expansive and no other option.

@Flaming_Kaiser absolutely agree with you on this point about the dangers of corporate overreach and the general downward spiral of capitalism, yet I digress.I buy physical media whenever possible because I finance this hobby by reselling. However I do also enjoy streaming as a supplementary option. And while I do see the need of caution how we decide to spend our money, I don't think the usual internet response of an immediate turn to hyperbolic statements has ever helped any discourse.

@tameshiyaku I see it with everything and it never seems to be getting better I just dont trust big corp for one bit. Love to see me be wrong on this point for once.