One giant cloud for games will not happen and I agree with you. We can't even get to only one console. However, it doesn't bother me that much. It's expensive sure but it fuels competition. Sure I would prefer just one machine or service for all of my gaming needs but the way it's done today isn't broken or unnecessary.
Universal Cloud Gaming
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 On 01/09/2012 at 03:59 AM by jjindie See More From This User » |
re: IGN Letter from the Editor - 2012 and the End of the World
I'm split 50/50 between 1up and IGN these days. I could say I get most of my gaming news from IGN, but much of their content isn't really news, just nerd porn and top 10 lists. It does have a lot more content than 1up and the community is much larger. IGN has timely reviews and 1up has better editorials. But sometimes there's an entertaining article or two on IGN, when there is something to read and not another imbedded video story that my browser and crap internet can't seem to load.
Casey Lynch wants cloud gaming from the Big 3 and he wants it now. More speficially he wants the current generation of gaming consoles to be the last, with the current to serve as portals to the future cloud of instant gaming and instant gratification. I share the sentiment, digital-only would be awesome, but not all that realistic, at least for now.
The Big 3: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo make stuff. Sony makes everystuff, Microsoft makes softwarestuff, and Nintendo makes kidzstuff. Sony's plan is to make every piece of electronic equpiment in your daily life, from your computer to your TV, smartphone, automated toilet, and gaming console. Microsoft wants to make sure they're all running on the Windows operating system, and Nintendo's plan is to make sure your kids never run out of anything to ask Santa Claus for at Christmas time. The Big 3 are not about to change their plans and switch to a service based business model.
The Big 3 could conceivably make a slightly updated version of their hardware to access the cloud, but there would be at least three of them, one from Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. Apple once created a failed console, so they might want to get back into the game, so to speak. But I think the iPhone and iPad already are mobile portals to the fledgling gaming cloud. But if you read through the entire editorial by Casey Lynch, he wants just one portal, to one gaming cloud, with access to all games from Gears of War, to Uncharted, Zelda, Pokemon, Nintendogs and every other game from the past, present and future. Well, that's just not frickin' going to happen!
In order for the Big 3, or even OnLive, to completely embrace cloud gaming, they'd have to become ISPs themselves. I just don't see how they could allow themselves to be dependent on semi-regional and often very regional, local ISPs from around the world. Here's a makeshift lists of ISPs, it's rather big. Not all of them offer high speed access either, not to mention the glut of recent downloading restrictions and regulations from the private and public sectors. For universal cloud gaming to work, net neutrality would have to be adopted all over the world, and that's more of a corporate/political issue rather than infrastructure related.
OnLive - great idea, crap internet
If early cloud gaming upstarts, like OnLive, prove their service to be a viable business model, and the Big 3 care enough about cloud gaming, they'd likely have to rebuild the internet infrastructure from the ground up, thus redifining the word 'internet.' I could see the Big 3 each building their own portal to access the cloud but each version would be uniquely branded. And, of course, Nintendo's would still have a silly name. WeeClowd? SkyeWii?
Unless the Big 3, or at least somebody, rebuilds the internet to guarantee stable access then universal cloud gaming isn't going to happen. There would not only be tiered internet access but also tiered video game access. Video games for the rich! Maybe if they merged. The Big 3 becomes the Big One, Mctendosonysoft! If Casey Lynch feels oppressed by the lack of simplicity and interconnectivity of his favourite time-wasters, imagine how he, and all of us, would feel if one company controlled the internet!
the Big One is watching
Even if this 1984ish scenario were to happen, I doubt they'd all merge together, Mctendosonysoft!, thus still keeping their services separate from each other. One login for some Gears of War action, another for Uncharted. Same old problem. New world order. Remember, even 1984 had at least three fictional superstates.
But I think it's safer to predict that Sony will develop a holodeck before they join forces with the others in the utopian/dystopian future neccessary for universal cloud gaming.
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