The cloud game is getting closer to us

In the past few years, the momentum of cloud computing is really not immeasurable, the frequency is also Gaozhi and high, for many business users, the word has even heard the ear cocoon. But cloud computing, to a large extent, has barely reached the public for much longer.

A few days ago, Nvidia finally launched the user's Long-awaited Shield handheld game machine. Although from the form, and nothing new, but simply this product with the ordinary game handles and Android intelligent terminals together. But this product has a function or caused the author's attention. received some attention.

In addition to having a handle that handles well and features that ordinary Android terminals should have, the device also provides users with a function called Stream Game (which should be translated into streaming games, but the name feels very strange). This feature allows the device to get game video streaming from the PC side in a way that is similar to the WiFi direct connection, while the game's control is still on the handheld device. In other words, the Stream game function can turn the Shield handheld game into a PC gaming handle with a display screen, and it's still wireless. Of course, as a traditional graphics card manufacturer, you also have to have an Nvidia video card and a fairly good home wireless network (the Nvidia official recommends a dual-band router).

Well, after the vast majority of gamers can finally not sit in front of the computer, but can comfortably nest in the sofa to experience PC games. After understanding the nature of this function, we can still find out. The concept of this stream game is quite close to cloud computing. But stream game the data in cloud computing into its own computer, and switched the WAN into WiFi direct connection. And this advantage is very simple, to minimize the speed of the remote game interference.

Cloud computing and a big bone to chew

In any case, we cannot deny that video games or interactive entertainment industries have been developing at a rapid pace since the 70 's, and there is no sign of slowing growth in any economy. For example, the "Call of Duty" series, which is popular with the player community, is the latest generation to be sold in November 2012, 15 days after the sale, which topped $1 billion trillion, and the game has sold 26 million units by June 30, 2013. And in the field of interactive entertainment, there are many products with powerful appeal like Call of Duty series.

Even now, if players want to experience a truly exciting single player, you first have to have a PC that is strong enough or a hundreds of dollar game terminal (like Microsoft Xbox or Sony PlayStation), Then you can have a hardware base to be a gamer.

Frankly, players have spent dozens of of billions of dollars on the game itself, and it is clearly a unfriendly act for consumers to spend hundreds of or even thousands of dollars upgrading their PC configuration or buying a new generation of consoles.

Of course, on the other hand, piracy is ubiquitous. Because of the protection of Digital Millennium Copyright Law, many of the game's cracking behavior is difficult to receive supervision. Although the Digital Millennium Copyright Law can provide some protection to the copyright of digital works, it also has the suspicion of complicating the problem.

And cloud computing is clearly the ultimate solution to this list of contradictions.

Imagine, if one day, all the games will no longer have the physical version, but in the cloud data center. Then all players need only a cheap terminal to connect to the network can enjoy the top quality, smooth, anytime video game experience, it will undoubtedly be the beginning of another spring in the video game industry. And because the cost of digital distribution is cheaper, and games are priced more cheaply, more people can participate in this kind of entertainment.

It may not be a dream

A lot of people may say I'm delusional, but what I'm saying is that things are changing. In February 2013, Sony officially released a new generation of PlayStation game consoles, although there is no actual product demo, but Sony spokesman has promised to provide players with related cloud game functions.

At a press conference in Sony, Gaikai CEO David Perry, a cloud gaming service provider already acquired by SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment), said Gaikai is working with Sony so that players can have the latest game demo without waiting. In the previous product, the player needed to download a large number of packets prior to playing a new game, depending on the size of the game, the download process could take up to several hours.

Other sources claim that Sony's rival in the gaming console is also planning to include similar features in its new generation of game consoles to enhance the competitiveness of its products. Although the news has not been officially confirmed, but I think a game with a cloud game features will obviously look cooler.

Cloud game still takes time

For companies such as Sony and Microsoft with software and hardware platforms, gaming networks, gaming studios and a lot of collaborative resources, building a cloud gaming platform is clearly not a difficult task. But for the vast majority of PC gamers (as opposed to the PC as a gaming platform for gamers), cloud gaming may need to wait a few days. The main difficulties probably come from three.

First of all: At present, most of the PC games are based on the Windows family of operating systems and Mac OS X series operating system as the target platform developed. And the cloud game operators want to provide services to PC players first of all to have the appropriate platform, which is designed to a large number of virtual machines. It is also not cheap for a virtual machine to run a Windows operating system.

Second, most of the current games are only developed for the standard PC environment, and if multiple graphics cards and processors are involved, it will greatly reduce the efficiency of the entire system, and even unpredictable errors will occur. and the traditional PC game and online games are different, want to successfully login cloud platform, the development level of game developers will be a considerable test.

Again, and most important, is the distribution of profits and the problem of "illicit servers". Since traditional PC games want to log into the cloud and become a public-oriented cloud service, this service requires an operator to operate. Problems followed, how the developers and operators in the profit, how operators to counter the game and how to grade or age restrictions (traditional PC games due to different themes, in foreign countries usually have a more stringent age limit) and so on. All these questions need to be cracked by the explorers of the cloud game.

But since the major manufacturers have begun to spread the seeds of cloud games, then sooner or later, Cloud games will change our entertainment life completely.

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