Streaming becoming more important next gen for Sony

Started by the-pi-guy, May 21, 2019, 04:22 AM

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the-pi-guy


BananaKing

I wonder if all games will be streamable next gen. If you buy it digitally I can see them giving you the option to download it, or stream it on any device that has PSN.

kitler53

I wonder if all games will be streamable next gen. If you buy it digitally I can see them giving you the option to download it, or stream it on any device that has PSN.
i really hope so.  i will 100% of the time prefer to download and play the game locally.  but right now i "manage" a long list of games i "might play next" to ensure the game is already downloaded before I finish a game.   i would really be happy if i were able to only have games i'm actively playing downloaded to my system and when it came time to play a new game i'd simply stream it for a few hours while the game is being downloaded and then transition back to the local version.   

that would require cloud saves to be far more streamlined then they are,.. but it would be so nice to have that option.  it would also naturally support "play anywhere".  again,.. i wouldn't do it often but if i could play my games from my mother-in-law's house it would make some of my long weekends there more enjoyable.


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Legend

I wonder if all games will be streamable next gen. If you buy it digitally I can see them giving you the option to download it, or stream it on any device that has PSN.
I bet all games will be streamable but they won't have crossbuy. A physical disk doesn't come with a digital copy, so a digital copy doesn't need to inherently include a streaming copy.

Streaming costs money so unless the business model involves continuous payments, it's not viable. PS+ could be a loophole but most likely streaming will be sold as an all you can eat buffet.

the-pi-guy

It'd be cool if Sony offered to PS+ users the ability to stream bought games as well as the ability to use extra bandwidth to download while streaming.  

BananaKing

It'd be cool if Sony offered to PS+ users the ability to stream bought games as well as the ability to use extra bandwidth to download while streaming.  
I bet all games will be streamable but they won't have crossbuy. A physical disk doesn't come with a digital copy, so a digital copy doesn't need to inherently include a streaming copy.

Streaming costs money so unless the business model involves continuous payments, it's not viable. PS+ could be a loophole but most likely streaming will be sold as an all you can eat buffet.
As I said I think they should have all digital purchases to be streamable. If you buy a game digitally, you can stream it on another device that supports PSN (they should add mobiles to that list). I doubt they would let physical games have a streaming option, because you can just buy a game, sell it then stream it.

Basically physical works as always. Digital adds the ability to stream. Or they could add that option behind PS+, to give more value to PS+.

kitler53

I bet all games will be streamable but they won't have crossbuy. A physical disk doesn't come with a digital copy, so a digital copy doesn't need to inherently include a streaming copy.

Streaming costs money so unless the business model involves continuous payments, it's not viable. PS+ could be a loophole but most likely streaming will be sold as an all you can eat buffet.
i mean, that money can be sunk into the cost of digital.  for example,.. i buy digital music from amazon.  when i do i am allowed to stream it from their servers forever at no additional cost.  

few if any people will buy 1 game and then steam it for 100,000 hours.  all sony/ms need to know is what is a reasonable average amount of streaming time per purchase and bake that into the cost.  they are already saving on the cost to produce and ship a disc.  honestly the streaming is probably not more expansive than that and is getting cheaper every day.

and yeah, i expect a ps+ subscription will be required just because they can get away with it.


Featured Artist: Vanessa Hudgens

Legend

i mean, that money can be sunk into the cost of digital.  for example,.. i buy digital music from amazon.  when i do i am allowed to stream it from their servers forever at no additional cost.  

few if any people will buy 1 game and then steam it for 100,000 hours.  all sony/ms need to know is what is a reasonable average amount of streaming time per purchase and bake that into the cost.  they are already saving on the cost to produce and ship a disc.  honestly the streaming is probably not more expansive than that and is getting cheaper every day.

and yeah, i expect a ps+ subscription will be required just because they can get away with it.
I think the difference between regular streaming and game streaming is significant, at least for now. Music and video streaming costs are almost all related to bandwidth while games require a large amount of server processing as well. Graphicly simple games and short linear games could probably benefit from streaming costs over physical costs but I expect the opposite is true for open world games.

Witcher 3 style games would either need to have their digital price bumped to make up for streaming costs or they would need additional DLC and microtransactions to keep players paying while they play. The industry has already moved in this direction with games as a service so lots of games could work fine with free streaming options but I don't think the industry has fully figured pricing out yet. It was telling that Stadia's big reveal never mentioned costs as a positive of the platform.

kitler53

I think the difference between regular streaming and game streaming is significant, at least for now. Music and video streaming costs are almost all related to bandwidth while games require a large amount of server processing as well. Graphicly simple games and short linear games could probably benefit from streaming costs over physical costs but I expect the opposite is true for open world games.

Witcher 3 style games would either need to have their digital price bumped to make up for streaming costs or they would need additional DLC and microtransactions to keep players paying while they play. The industry has already moved in this direction with games as a service so lots of games could work fine with free streaming options but I don't think the industry has fully figured pricing out yet. It was telling that Stadia's big reveal never mentioned costs as a positive of the platform.
i mean yeah, but also i think you are making a bigger deal of this than it is.  i don't have much in the way of hard information but..

1. one console's worth of server side processing can probably serve about 20 customers worth of streaming.  i say this because there are 168 hours in a week and the average and the internet tells me the average gamer plays 6 hours a week.  theoretically that would mean servicing 28 customers but i'm also sure of 2 things:
  - it will be impossible to at full capacity all the time which will reduce efficiency.
  - the really hardcore gamers (like myself) will download their games and not use streaming whenever possible which will increase efficiency.

2. one console's worth of server side processing will be cheaper to purchase than the home console.  therefore when i use $500 as the server side cost i'm not completly low-balling this estimate.

3. $500 of server side processing split over 20 customers means $25 to purchase the hardware.  that's less than half a standard yearly ps+ subscription (which again i think will be required).  


or from a different point of view in lieu of the sony/ms streaming announcement.  the software i build can be run in azure (an azure VM).  the VMs we spin up are about double the raw stats as a ps4 (ram and cpu at least).  it costs us $50 a month to rent this space (or $600 a year) and we don't have nearly the kind of purchasing power sony has since we only buy 1 vm at a time when a customer purchases our software.


all i'm saying is clearly costs are not negligible but they are in the ballpark of being affordable.  i think between ps+ (or maybe even a premium ps+) and the extra income sony gets when customer buy digitally instead of physically can more than cover the costs to offer steaming of digital purchases to ps5 owners.  

maybe it would be different if sony was offering a ps5 -ite which was a $50 box incapable of running software locally so that all gaming required streaming.  but so long as this is a feature of the ps5 i think streaming will be largely a feature with only occasional actual customer use but much larger perceived customer value.


Featured Artist: Vanessa Hudgens