For the last few years, the video game sector has experienced an incredible boost (being even more profitable than cinema and sport together), therefore all IT companies want to jump in and use the cloud as a platform for marketing their games
“Cloud”, that word we grant you you will find present in all hobbies you have always enjoyed and you didn't even realize it. You listen to music on Spotify without CDs, you watch TV shows and movies through Netflix without the need to keep a DVD collection or you work from your computer connected to a much more powerful machine, but now you can even play video games without any gaming console or even the video game in your hands, and that's all thanks to CLOUD GAMING!
The cloud has changed our lives and the video game sector is catching up too to how things are evolving. In the last few years, the video game sector has experienced a huge boost (becoming even more profitable than cinema and sports together), therefore all companies wish to join in and use the Cloud as platform for their video games.
Cloud gaming is a service for video game streaming that plays on a remote server with the hardware necessary to that end. In order to use this service, you just need a computer or a gaming console that supports it and connection to the Internet.
The main elements for cloud gaming to work are:
Each of the companies that have led the gaming console war for the last few years and PCs offer this service but not in the same way:
Little by little there are increasingly more companies that take their chances on the Cloud, these are some of the upcoming Cloud services we'll see out very soon:
PROS
CONS
Cloud servers are not perfect nor was the Internet from 15-20 years ago, when it took lots of patience to connect to the Internet and then we would wait for minutes sitting just for a simple image to load.
5G and its subsequent evolutions (people are already talking about 6G) can make this service change, enhance its value and make it known, since still few people use it compared to those who do not.
On the other hand Cloud gaming may "help" both consoles and physical-format video games to start dissappearing little by little (currently digital sales already beat those of physical format) and for consoles and video games to become like music CDs or DVDs/Blu-Ray are nowadays, pure collecting by those who are real fans of the hobby.
We have the immediacy of playing our favorite video game with just a "click" with the best features, wherever we want it and whenever, not worrying about anything else. In fact, isn't that what we want?... If you ask me, maybe I'm overcome by nostalgia and I see a future where we won't have that many of the special moments that physical format gave us and I don't think I will ever experience them again: blowing on a N64 cartouche that came back to life just like magic, or having that buddy that lent you a game but you never saw your buddy again (or losing a game YOU lent and never recovered), reading and rereading those carefully designed manuals that came in game boxes, video game stores... I suppose that keeping everything in the Cloud is the natural evolution of technology and that video games will not escape that fate, I just wish we won't loose everything that made the industry grow and that we will be able to still enjoy it.