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> Good luck getting that flexible of an experience with a full console or desktop. You could stream your gameplay without resorting to Cloud. Steam has (had?)

> Good luck getting that flexible of an experience with a full console or desktop. You could stream your gameplay without resorting to Cloud. Steam has (had?) a great service where you could stream your game from one computer to another on the same network. Admittedly, I'm not in the cloud gaming market nor would I ever be. First, data caps prevent me from doing this. Second, let's say I wanted to stream from some public place. I have to connect to their wifi? Non-starter. Not going to happen. Stream over mobile? Data caps again, this time they charge an arm and a leg and the connection quality is garbage. Third, if I am out of my house I'm probably driving. A Switch, Steam Deck, or Cloud Gaming can't do anything for that. It turns out I'm no longer a child. I cannot game while out of the house anymore and that's ok. I will never sign up for a cloud gaming service until they can get over the infrastructural issues that prevent adults like me from engaging. For starters that would be public transit, and better Internet infrastructure and services. I'm happy you found a use case for it. Most of the United States in particular, and I'd wager the world as a whole, does not and will not be in a place where that's viable.

vel0city 3y ago
> It turns out I'm no longer a child. I cannot game while out of the house anymore and that's ok. I'm not a child, haven't been one for a long time. I still find time to play games out of the house. You don't need to be a child to play videogames outside of the house. Just this weekend we went to the park. I drew the straw to watch my infant nap in the stroller while my wife ran off with my older child. An hour of downtime. Turn on the 5G hotspot, whip out the laptop, and I'm on Starfield on my cheap laptop with several hours of battery life.
- deprecative 3y ago
  You're not a child but a child is what enables that behavior. I do not have a child nor am I a child. If I am out of the house I am driving, engaged in an activity, or there socially. When I was a kid I had my gameboy and I'd play it nonstop. Then I started driving and having adult responsibilities and all of a sudden I'm not able to do that. Then again, I wouldn't have gone to the park to watch my infant while I played games. I could do that at my house.
vel0city 3y ago
I forgot to address the Steam Home Streaming with my earlier comment, and I did want to bring that up as well. I didn't even think about it, as the smoothness of cloud gaming just completely pushed this capability out of my mind. Steam Home Streaming works pretty well on a LAN. Quality-wise, with my desktop at home its even higher quality than Xbox Cloud Gaming. I've got many hundreds of hours on my Steam Link. I just wished they'd make it work well outside of the LAN. I've had mixed experiences trying to run it on a few different VPN stacks. I ran into challenges of it not seeing the other computers, the stream being very unstable and crashing, and other issues. Plus, it means I need my computer's local console unlocked at home, but I prefer my computers to get locked automatically. And even then I've had games get in some stuck state launching or closing where I had to manually intervene on the local console to fix it. Meanwhile, with cloud gaming I just click launch and the game is going. There's no waiting for updates. There's no managing a local console. I don't even need a gaming rig. Also, you mention "Most of the United States in particular", I am in the United States. This has been my experience in one of the larger metro areas in the US (DFW). I don't get why it would be viable here but nowhere else in the US. 43% of US households have fiber-optic home internet. 60% of households live in areas with 5G coverage. I haven't been on many trips since getting it, but even a few years ago I could manage to sometimes make Steam Home Streaming work from a hotel WiFi on VPN at various places around the country, even with its challenges I mentioned above. I've got family who game a good bit with PlayStation cloud gaming service on a 5G home internet connection. 43% fiber and 60% 5G definitely isn't 100%, I agree. But it does mean there's a pretty big chunk of consumers who can use this, today. I'm not in some magical internet wonderland inhabited by just my family and me. 43% of ~330 million people is >140M people with home fiber internet, nearly 200M people with 5G coverage, today. And that's just ignoring all the consumers with actually decent cable internet connectivity.
- deprecative 3y ago
  > 43% of US households have fiber-optic home internet. 60% of households live in areas with 5G coverage. I'm doubting both of these numbers. Even if 5G coverage is there, like in my home, it's not a good enough connection to do anything beyond watch the 5G symbol play tag with the LTE symbol. Even when we live in that world we still live under data caps. > I'm not in some magical internet wonderland inhabited by just my family and me You are to an extent.

vel0city 3y ago

> It turns out I'm no longer a child. I cannot game while out of the house anymore and that's ok. I'm not a child, haven't been one for a long time. I still find time to play games out of the house. You don't need to be a child to play videogames outside of the house. Just this weekend we went to the park. I drew the straw to watch my infant nap in the stroller while my wife ran off with my older child. An hour of downtime. Turn on the 5G hotspot, whip out the laptop, and I'm on Starfield on my cheap laptop with several hours of battery life.

deprecative 3y ago
You're not a child but a child is what enables that behavior. I do not have a child nor am I a child. If I am out of the house I am driving, engaged in an activity, or there socially. When I was a kid I had my gameboy and I'd play it nonstop. Then I started driving and having adult responsibilities and all of a sudden I'm not able to do that. Then again, I wouldn't have gone to the park to watch my infant while I played games. I could do that at my house.

vel0city 3y ago

I forgot to address the Steam Home Streaming with my earlier comment, and I did want to bring that up as well. I didn't even think about it, as the smoothness of cloud gaming just completely pushed this capability out of my mind. Steam Home Streaming works pretty well on a LAN. Quality-wise, with my desktop at home its even higher quality than Xbox Cloud Gaming. I've got many hundreds of hours on my Steam Link. I just wished they'd make it work well outside of the LAN. I've had mixed experiences trying to run it on a few different VPN stacks. I ran into challenges of it not seeing the other computers, the stream being very unstable and crashing, and other issues. Plus, it means I need my computer's local console unlocked at home, but I prefer my computers to get locked automatically. And even then I've had games get in some stuck state launching or closing where I had to manually intervene on the local console to fix it. Meanwhile, with cloud gaming I just click launch and the game is going. There's no waiting for updates. There's no managing a local console. I don't even need a gaming rig. Also, you mention "Most of the United States in particular", I am in the United States. This has been my experience in one of the larger metro areas in the US (DFW). I don't get why it would be viable here but nowhere else in the US. 43% of US households have fiber-optic home internet. 60% of households live in areas with 5G coverage. I haven't been on many trips since getting it, but even a few years ago I could manage to sometimes make Steam Home Streaming work from a hotel WiFi on VPN at various places around the country, even with its challenges I mentioned above. I've got family who game a good bit with PlayStation cloud gaming service on a 5G home internet connection. 43% fiber and 60% 5G definitely isn't 100%, I agree. But it does mean there's a pretty big chunk of consumers who can use this, today. I'm not in some magical internet wonderland inhabited by just my family and me. 43% of ~330 million people is >140M people with home fiber internet, nearly 200M people with 5G coverage, today. And that's just ignoring all the consumers with actually decent cable internet connectivity.

deprecative 3y ago
> 43% of US households have fiber-optic home internet. 60% of households live in areas with 5G coverage. I'm doubting both of these numbers. Even if 5G coverage is there, like in my home, it's not a good enough connection to do anything beyond watch the 5G symbol play tag with the LTE symbol. Even when we live in that world we still live under data caps. > I'm not in some magical internet wonderland inhabited by just my family and me You are to an extent.