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Some may remember an earlier streaming game service, OnLive, that crashed and burned spectacularly: https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/28/3274739/onlive-report htt

Some may remember an earlier streaming game service, OnLive, that crashed and burned spectacularly: https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/28/3274739/onlive-report https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/28/3274739/onlive-report plus HN discussions here: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=onlive&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=onlive&sort=byPopularity&prefi... I saw the OnLive demo. It was very slick, and the concept seemed more than viable, it was inevitable.

RIMR 8y ago
Internet speeds in North America have greatly increased since the OnLive launched. I suspect that Google will have better infrastructure than OnLive, and that their customers will have better Internet.
- gsich 8y ago
  Speed is not the (main) problem. It's latency and jitter. With the last one especially bad on mobile networks. To get at most 1ms of additional delay you also need a datacenter every 300 km.
  - jsgo 8y ago
    I used the precursor of Stadia, Project Stream. There were moments where the video went fuzzy, but for >95% of the time, it ran fantastic. My gaming PC setup is an i5/16GB RAM/GTX 1080 and it stutters more than the stream did (I assume that's on the CPU side). I'm sure Google has the compression algorithm chops to make this all work. Unfortunately for me at least, what I want is more akin to a cloud VM where they can host my games and I stream them wherever, which this isn't it. I've already got games between Steam, uPlay, Origin, etc. I have zero interest in buying a game 2x just to be able to have more portable play.
    - thirdsun 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure you won't buy them (again). You will rent them. Anything but subscription-based pricing model for Google Stadia would be a surprise to me.
      - riskable 8y ago
        No, Stadia is the perfect use case for F2P games. The only requirement to start playing will probably be a Google account. It'll probably be a mix of pay-once games, lots-of-games-for-a-subscription, and pay-once, play-until-Google-shuts-the-service-down games.
  - shereadsthenews 8y ago
    Google operates tiny little datacenters in every ISP POP in America. That is why the video I just watched on Youtube in Oakland came from some place 2ms away even though Google's nearest real datacenter is in Oregon.
    - alexandre_m 8y ago
      Video files (even live stream HTTP based protocols like HLS) can be cached very easily on CDN infrastructure. However, a gaming session means to have a dedicated daemon running for you somewhere. I doubt this can be deployed anywhere on the spot, but perhaps they have some amazing technology for that.
      - RIMR 8y ago
        Yeah, but the video file has to be the same video streaming to lots of people. CDNs aren't helpful if every stream is unique.
        alexandre_m 8y ago
        That's the point, there's no cache possible for interactive gaming sessions. It's a different architecture altogether.
    - kec 8y ago
      How do you edge cache games though? Edge caching youtube requires a giant pile of hard drives, Edge caching games requires a giant pile of hard drives and a giant pile of compute power.
      - cbhl 8y ago
        (Disclaimer in bio.) It's not the edge cache itself that matters; it's that many ISPs peer directly with Google. Google Cloud can route the audio/video/keyboard packets mostly over Google's private network and then only use the public internet once it gets to your ISP (or their transit provider). This provides Google with more control over how the packet gets to the end user. Google provides a similar service to Google Cloud customers as the "Premium Network Service Tier". https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/docs/overview https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/docs/overview
davefp 8y ago
OnLive's patents were bought up by Sony in 2015, and I imagine they now power at least some of Playstation Now, Sony's streaming servier.
chaostheory 8y ago
Gaikai was one of OnLive's competitors. It had better management and probably better tech as well. Sony bought it out and it still lives as Playstation Now. I believe Dave Perry is one of the founders. EDIT: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaikai-founder-blames-onlives-pc-focus-for-its-demise/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gaikai-founder-blames-onlives-pc-foc...
KallDrexx 8y ago
OnLive was both before the Cloud era (where they manually had to maintain many points of presence that were near consumers and they didn't have the money to do it near what Google, Amazon and Microsoft are able to do) and before GPUs were really mainstream for in normal data center servers to the scale this type of service requires.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  Key quote from the linked article: > the company had deployed thousands of servers that were sitting unused, and only ever had 1,600 concurrent users of the service worldwide They were burning through all of their money because they highly overestimated the audience. That's one of the main problems the cloud was made to solve.
  - Const-me 8y ago
    This particular cloud will only solve the problem if google will find a way to sell the time of these AMD GPUs to someone else. Traditional GPGPU customers, and machine learners, usually use CUDA instead of OpenCL / VulkanCompute / DirectCompute. At least from my position is looks that way. I’m a freelance developer and my clients are picking CUDA in ~75% cases. The rest is DirectCompute, if computing on client PCs and hardware compatibility is required.
- rasz 8y ago
  Economics were not the main problem with OnLive, it simply didnt work from the players perspective.
  - KallDrexx 8y ago
    Right partially because OnLive couldn't spend the money required to put servers close enough to give users a good experience. It would have taken a monumental amount of money for them to expand in a way that would facilitate that, and custom make servers that had consumer grade GPUs in them. Furthermore, there are other technological advances that have come even in the past 2 years that help facilitate this, like Secure Reliable Transport protocol (https://www.srtalliance.org/ https://www.srtalliance.org/). Things were just too stacked against OnLive at the time to make it work, but most of those barriers have since been removed after they had gone under.

RIMR 8y ago

Internet speeds in North America have greatly increased since the OnLive launched. I suspect that Google will have better infrastructure than OnLive, and that their customers will have better Internet.

gsich 8y ago
Speed is not the (main) problem. It's latency and jitter. With the last one especially bad on mobile networks. To get at most 1ms of additional delay you also need a datacenter every 300 km.
- jsgo 8y ago
  I used the precursor of Stadia, Project Stream. There were moments where the video went fuzzy, but for >95% of the time, it ran fantastic. My gaming PC setup is an i5/16GB RAM/GTX 1080 and it stutters more than the stream did (I assume that's on the CPU side). I'm sure Google has the compression algorithm chops to make this all work. Unfortunately for me at least, what I want is more akin to a cloud VM where they can host my games and I stream them wherever, which this isn't it. I've already got games between Steam, uPlay, Origin, etc. I have zero interest in buying a game 2x just to be able to have more portable play.
  - thirdsun 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure you won't buy them (again). You will rent them. Anything but subscription-based pricing model for Google Stadia would be a surprise to me.
    - riskable 8y ago
      No, Stadia is the perfect use case for F2P games. The only requirement to start playing will probably be a Google account. It'll probably be a mix of pay-once games, lots-of-games-for-a-subscription, and pay-once, play-until-Google-shuts-the-service-down games.
- shereadsthenews 8y ago
  Google operates tiny little datacenters in every ISP POP in America. That is why the video I just watched on Youtube in Oakland came from some place 2ms away even though Google's nearest real datacenter is in Oregon.
  - alexandre_m 8y ago
    Video files (even live stream HTTP based protocols like HLS) can be cached very easily on CDN infrastructure. However, a gaming session means to have a dedicated daemon running for you somewhere. I doubt this can be deployed anywhere on the spot, but perhaps they have some amazing technology for that.
    - RIMR 8y ago
      Yeah, but the video file has to be the same video streaming to lots of people. CDNs aren't helpful if every stream is unique.
      - alexandre_m 8y ago
        That's the point, there's no cache possible for interactive gaming sessions. It's a different architecture altogether.
  - kec 8y ago
    How do you edge cache games though? Edge caching youtube requires a giant pile of hard drives, Edge caching games requires a giant pile of hard drives and a giant pile of compute power.
    - cbhl 8y ago
      (Disclaimer in bio.) It's not the edge cache itself that matters; it's that many ISPs peer directly with Google. Google Cloud can route the audio/video/keyboard packets mostly over Google's private network and then only use the public internet once it gets to your ISP (or their transit provider). This provides Google with more control over how the packet gets to the end user. Google provides a similar service to Google Cloud customers as the "Premium Network Service Tier". https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/docs/overview https://cloud.google.com/network-tiers/docs/overview

davefp 8y ago

OnLive's patents were bought up by Sony in 2015, and I imagine they now power at least some of Playstation Now, Sony's streaming servier.

chaostheory 8y ago

Gaikai was one of OnLive's competitors. It had better management and probably better tech as well. Sony bought it out and it still lives as Playstation Now. I believe Dave Perry is one of the founders. EDIT: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaikai-founder-blames-onlives-pc-focus-for-its-demise/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gaikai-founder-blames-onlives-pc-foc...

KallDrexx 8y ago

OnLive was both before the Cloud era (where they manually had to maintain many points of presence that were near consumers and they didn't have the money to do it near what Google, Amazon and Microsoft are able to do) and before GPUs were really mainstream for in normal data center servers to the scale this type of service requires.

ehsankia 8y ago
Key quote from the linked article: > the company had deployed thousands of servers that were sitting unused, and only ever had 1,600 concurrent users of the service worldwide They were burning through all of their money because they highly overestimated the audience. That's one of the main problems the cloud was made to solve.
- Const-me 8y ago
  This particular cloud will only solve the problem if google will find a way to sell the time of these AMD GPUs to someone else. Traditional GPGPU customers, and machine learners, usually use CUDA instead of OpenCL / VulkanCompute / DirectCompute. At least from my position is looks that way. I’m a freelance developer and my clients are picking CUDA in ~75% cases. The rest is DirectCompute, if computing on client PCs and hardware compatibility is required.
rasz 8y ago
Economics were not the main problem with OnLive, it simply didnt work from the players perspective.
- KallDrexx 8y ago
  Right partially because OnLive couldn't spend the money required to put servers close enough to give users a good experience. It would have taken a monumental amount of money for them to expand in a way that would facilitate that, and custom make servers that had consumer grade GPUs in them. Furthermore, there are other technological advances that have come even in the past 2 years that help facilitate this, like Secure Reliable Transport protocol (https://www.srtalliance.org/ https://www.srtalliance.org/). Things were just too stacked against OnLive at the time to make it work, but most of those barriers have since been removed after they had gone under.