Brain Hood

It has been a while since we introduced you to the concept of cloud gaming and how it has evolved from the emerging technologies for cloud computing, to become a market unto itself, with its own demand dynamics and target segment; even in this infant stage, gamers have begun to clamor for it. We also gave you an idea of just why video game news publications are raving about it. Let us now take a deeper look at cloud gaming, its origins, and what it requires to enjoy cloud gaming.

Cloud Gaming: Where  it All Began and Current Operators

The idea of cloud gaming was first broached by a Finland firm named G-cluster, and hyped by several video gaming news journals and blogs. Since then, several firms have banked upon this technology and have been working towards it. Some firms like OnLive, Gaikai and PlayCast have been among the few to come out with a sound revenue model that they have implemented straightaway and are already operational. These operators are now working hard to bring their hardware (and thus services) to a level where they can meet the high expectations and effectively challenge the consoles. As the client base expands, they expect to be able to bring costs down and thus reach out to avid game lovers even more than before.

Games such as Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia are one of the most popular games played on the internet these days. Even the requirements for these aren’t much and you just need a PC, Mac that could access the internet.

With cloud gaming, code processing and video rendering done at the server-side you can play any game on any system including DOS/Apple/Commodore/Atari games, arcade games, console games, Windows games, Apple OS games, and phone app games. Any game can be put on server and it is the capability of the server that allows multi users to enjoy those games at the same time.

Limitations of Cloud Gaming

The main limitation of Cloud gaming is the network quality. Due to the difference in the network quality at the end of different users depending upon their distance to a game server of the cloud users may experience several problems while playing games. Some people might get disconnected while playing games due to these issues. It may irritate a player if he/she gets disconnected every now and then.

Another limiting factor may be ability of local computer or system to properly render a video stream. Video compression codecs and technologies may be used by a gaming cloud to reduce amount of data required to transfer over bandwidth, and it takes sufficient amount of processing power to decompress and/or decode such a video stream.

Cloud gaming is to retro gaming what Email is to Letters. When emails started it was feared that the letters would not exist after some time but they survived in their own category. It may be the future, it may not but one thing is for certain we are not there yet.

It will be exciting to see the choices gamers make when the next generation of consoles and gaming multimedia come up against fully operational cloud gaming services.

For now, that’s all we have on cloud gaming; keep following us for more video game news updates and game reviews.

Cloud gaming is a term fast becoming familiar to those who regularly follow gaming news blog posts.  So what is cloud gaming exactly? Cloud gaming can be loosely defined  as a video game that is played over the web, with no downloads and no specialized hardware or software required except of course for a thin client computer and a nominal web browser. Cloud gaming is also known as gaming on demand and is a new trend in online gaming. It allows you to play streamed games on demand using your computer (device) with the help of a client. The actual game software is stored with the operator or the gaming company’s server which is streamed directly to devices accessing the server (of course with the help of a client).

 This ground breaking development has enormous potential. A system that lets you play all the latest titles from almost any computer could be enticing for many gamers who are reluctant to invest in expensive hardware, and there are also opportunities here for software developers. With no downloads necessary for end users, games can be designed with premium optimization in mind.

Cloud Gaming : Part of a New Movement in Computing

The impact of cloud gaming has to be understood in the larger context the new technology that is changing the way we understand and manage our daily computing: cloud computing.

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, where shared resources, software, and information are provided to other devices over a network. These clouds are already present in most of our daily lives. Whenever we log in to our email accounts via a web browser, all the data is stored in the Clouds. Many of us may have also interacted with such Clouds when using Google Docs in which the docs, spread sheets and presentations are all edited online without ever being saved at our devices. ‘The Cloud’ is the ‘place’ where the files you view and use online are stored it saves your hard disk space and also allows you to access your documents from any place in the world.

How Cloud Gaming Scores over Currently State-of-the-Art Consoles

Since the inception of this technology of cloud computing, the gaming industry has seen several new changes for the benefit of the gamers. The technology of cloud gaming allows the user an access to numerous games without the need of a high end gaming multimedia and hardware like the Xbox360 and the PlayStation gaming consoles. You do not need to have a high end computer as the server runs the processing needs and acts like a system for the game to run upon. Just like any other game played on the computer the keys are assigned for all the moves, every move that can be made by the console is available on the computer. This allows you to enjoy the same game with the same moves without shedding out extra money. The controls and button presses from the user are transmitted directly to the server, where they are recorded, and the server then sends back the game’s response to the input controls.

Further adding to the fun you do not require an internet connection that is very high on speed, you can even enjoy the gaming experience with just another average internet connection needed for a standard definition television i.e. 1.5 mbps.

This was us introducing you to the concept of cloud gaming. We’ll be back soon with more details about cloud gaming, as well as other video game news and gaming multimedia trends.