4 ms·
They don't have to match what it would be sold for wholesale though, just need to match the marginal cost. A graphics card that can run a AAA game is less than
by GhostVII 7y ago
They don't have to match what it would be sold for wholesale though, just need to match the marginal cost. A graphics card that can run a AAA game is less than $500, so I don't think they are losing much on $9.99 a month. That's over $100 a year, and if each users plays 3 hours a day you can have 8 users using the same hardware at different times.
Now I don't think they are using consumer hardware, and there are other costs as well, but it seems realistic that they are making money off of it.
- nikanj 7y agoThat's assuming people play games in well-defined shifts. I find it more likely to have 8 users play between 8pm and 11pm and zero users for the rest of the day.
- mikepurvis 7y agoSure, but if they can spot-price other loads on them the rest of the time, I could see it working out.
- ric2b 7y agoBut they don't, that's the point.
- novok 7y agoTime zones are a thing.
- foobiekr 7y agoGames are latency sensitive and thus region sensitive. Multiplexing opportunities here are poor. Stadia is a terrible idea business-wise as Google has defined it.
- ElonMuskrat 7y agoI'm on the fence on Stadia - compute hardware prices keep dropping like a rock. What if we see viable $200 gaming rigs in 10 years? But I digress Google can utilize dark GPU hardware for numerous tasks. For example, YouTube video transcoding, ML, and Cloud batch processing.
- ceejayoz 7y ago> What if we see viable $200 gaming rigs in 10 years? Games, like websites, seem to expand to fit the available space. Today's smartphones would beat a ten year old mega-powered gaming PC.
- ElonMuskrat 7y agoOur two positions are not mutually exclusive. The price of even a top-line gaming rig could drop significantly over the next 10-20 years.
- ceejayoz 7y agoLatency is, too, especially in things like first person shooters. Someone in LA doesn't want to be using surplus GPUs in NY for Call of Duty.
- ric2b 7y agoDon't forget weekends vs weekdays.