“Cloud gaming” has been a tech buzzword for years. The idea is that we’ll no longer need gaming PCs or consoles with powerful graphics hardware. All the heavy lifting will be done “in the cloud.”
Cloud gaming has much in common with streaming videos. Essentially, the cloud-gaming server runs a game and streams a video of the gameplay to you. Your keyboard, mouse, and controller input actions are sent over the network to the cloud gaming server.
The remote server does all the heavy work, while your computer just receives streaming video (and audio) and sends input commands. Essentially, cloud gaming is like a streaming video service, but interactive.
Several cloud gaming services are currently in operation. Online is the most talked-about one, although its user base is reportedly quite low, with about 1800 users at peak times before its restructuring in August 2012.
While a proper gaming PC or console is superior to the Online experience, Online works surprisingly well considering the immense technical challenges it faces. Latency and image compression are both noticeable, but aren’t anywhere near as bad as you might expect.
So far, cloud gaming has failed to really catch on, as Online’s user numbers show us. However, Sony’s purchase of demonstrates that big names are interested in this technology.
NVIDIA is currently working on Project Shield, an Android-powered handheld game console with the ability to stream PC games from your PC — assuming the PC has a powerful enough NVIDIA graphics card. This would allow you to have a single gaming PC and use its hardware to play games wirelessly on a handheld game console and your TV. Latency would be much lower because you’re streaming from your home network, and bandwidth caps wouldn’t matter if it was all local. NVIDIA seems to be betting on this vision, which could offer some benefits of cloud gaming without some drawbacks — as long as you have powerful enough PC gaming hardware.
It’s impossible to predict the future. It’s clear that Online isn’t killing gaming PCs or consoles, but Sony made a $380 million bet on cloud gaming, and we may see cloud-gaming features in the PS4. Just as tablets haven’t killed the PC (in spite of all the media reports otherwise), cloud gaming won’t kill local gaming any time soon — but it may offer an alternative in certain situations.
The Best Cloud Gaming Services for 2021
Vortex – Best cloud gaming on a budget.
Shadow – Best cloud gaming for Mac support.
Amazon Luna – Best for cloud-based gaming for Twitch viewers.
GeForce NOW – Best PC cloud gaming for Nvidia fans.
Theoretical Advantages to Cloud Gaming
In theory, cloud gaming has a lot of going for it:
No Need for Expensive Hardware Investments or Upgrades
Play Games on Any OS or Device
Integrate Gaming Into TVs and Other Devices
Instant Playing
Easy Spectating
DRM
Disadvantages to Cloud Gaming
However, there are some significant downsides to cloud gaming:
Video Compression
Bandwidth
Latency
DRM
“Let’s say our industry had never done consoles or consumer clients. Even if we just started out with cloud gaming, you’d actually go in the direction of pushing intelligence out to the edge of the network, simply because it’s a great way of caching and saving you on network resources.”
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