1.What are some restrictions of streaming games right now?
“Currently, most larger ISPs do not provide unlimited data plans, most have monthly data caps, making cloud gaming cost prohibitive,” said Wanda Meloni, CEO and principal analyst for M2 Insights, a research and consulting firm. “Aside from the cost, many rural areas do not yet even have access to broadband.”
2. What does the comparison of money spent on physical consoles and digital gaming look like over the last 10 years?
Until a few years ago, most consumers paid $40 to $60 for games on discs or cartridges and played those games, then went to a store and bought a new one. In 2013, spending on physical console and PC games accounted for $6.3 billion, far surpassing the $4.7 billion spent on downloaded digital games and in-game microtransactions on consoles and PCs, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. But by 2016, the marketplace had flipped with digital spending on console and PC games amounting to about $6.8 billion, compared to $5.7 billion for physical game revenue, according to PwC.
3. What are Google, Sony, Microsoft, Amazon and other big companies doing with gaming consoles and streaming games now?
Despite additional competition, Microsoft and Sony will “thrive in a streaming world, as each has a large installed base of paying multiplayer customers (on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network) to support expansion into streaming,” Pachter said. “At the end of the day, streaming is an expensive service to provide, but Microsoft and Sony have a lot to lose if they cede this segment to Google, Apple or Amazon, so I expect each to offer a competitive platform and to thrive.”
4. How fast will games on the cloud develop in the future?
That’s why “it won’t be a swift or direct path from console or PC, to the cloud,” she said. “It will require several interim hybrid solutions as these technologies themselves evolve.””Like all consumer devices, consoles will continue to evolve and may mean something very different someday,” Ryan said, “but we aren’t there yet.”
5 questions
- What did you think when a big company like Google was able to say that Stadia was good enough to release?
- How long will the Playstation last until it’s inevitable end?
- If Stadia went as planned and was good, how do you think it would have changed gaming?
- How often do you game and what qualifies you to talk about the Gaming Industry?
- If Cloud Gaming makes it big, how will it affect the PC gaming market and the Brick and Mortar Gaming Retailers?
A peek into the past 