Gaming PC replacement?

[Lunytrickz]

[Bez]

Already seen this, sounds great but will it work in reality.

Early days yet but if they can pull it off and gamers come around to the idea of spending a monthly amount on renting this sort of thing instead of pulling out £xxx every 2 or 3 years to keep the PC up to date it might just be the future.

[Beardroid91]

It would need the consumer to have a very fast low latency internet connection, or you would have imput lags.

It is a great idea but, not there yet.

[MadManCK]

NVidia Shield offers a similar functionality. You can run your own games off their GPU farms.

Only thing is the price. I think if they can offer this for Netflix like monthly rates, at around 10$, it can be a huge success. The mentioned 35$ a month is simply too high and creates a barrier they don't want. Despite the quality of the services offered.

Most impressive about Shadow is the option to switch between different devices. Their app must be pretty lightweight to run obviously, despite the heavy gaming displayed.

The other applications Linus mentioned are perhaps even more interesting. Video rendering for example at 4K takes some effort to get right. Sometimes multiple attempts are needed or results do not match expectations. With a powerful cloud like this, you can render your videos from everywhere with a good iNet connection.

Maybe last is the weak link of the chain. With various providers applying different technologies to spread the load or share connections, a stable and consistent connection is still very hard to get.

Not to mention (the stupid) wifi gamers, ruining it for everybody else with their lag in multiplayer events.

With overall improvements of the global internet connections, fibre optics and better router technology, cloud based gaming or working is closer than you think.

Shadow appears to get things right. Will they be rewarded for a pioneering role, or go bankrupt due to a lack of interest? Investments like these will probably take at least 4 years, before they have to be made again. And with a promise of upgrading their farms, they need to be really financially solid to pull that off. Only with a massive amount of subscribers it will become interesting for investors or a stock exchange.

And you can be sure Sony and Microsoft will offer similar services from the new PS and XB successors. Not to mention Nvidia, who already has the shield setup with additional services. And all of them already have a client base to work from.

It will be interesting to watch the progress of these initiatives. For now i will stay a dinosaur with my home brew game rigs and unnecessary powerful HTPC. And i do have a Shield device as well.

If they really want to draw the attention of the hardcore PC gamers like myself, they will have to add support for exotic high end hardware for all kinds of simulations.