Future 4K video and game streaming to consoles. A leering threat to custom gaming PCs as we know it.

[EdwardERS]

I believe latter models of PS4 and Xbox One will be able to stream/play 4K video with HDMI 2.0 added. No complex modern games are gonna be rendered locally, but through services like Playstation Now they will stream 4K games by the end the the PS4s life. The successor to Xbox One and PS4 could be small streaming boxes with PS+ and XBL Gold tied to games run off site at giant server farms. In the same way Netflix started primarily as a DVD rental service, consoles will slowly change to primarily streaming cutting Walmart, Best Buy and Gamestop out of the picture for distributing software. 10 years ago I had no idea that my 1 Mbit DSL downspeed would be over 100 Mbit on cable now or 50 Mbit for a more similar price, yet it still lags behind what some European and Asian countries are offering today. That Iraq war money could've been spent on education and internet infrastructure, but oh well America. Seriously, the slow adoption of fiber across America will push this back further as time passes, but will happen eventually if not within 10 years.

 

When Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo -- much latter -- get into streaming how will that affect Steam? If Steam were to not change you'd have PC games being rendered locally on custom hardware by people that would have to be responsible for maintaining it like now vs off-site game streaming. What if the big 3 console companies finally started streaming to other operating system clients much in the same way Netflix is streamed to everything? There'd be no point of limiting your service to just one platform if all the game copyright/licensing is tied into the streamed gameplay from somewhere else based on service account fees. If you took the scale of people on XBL Gold and PS+ then transitioned those subs onto different competing streaming services things would change. The tier pricing could gets nuts : Unlimited game streaming, pay for specific games, pay for the quality of the game settings, maybe pay by the hour like AOL  ? I can't see a start up being able to do this, but a company like Amazon that wants to get into the game industry with its large server infrastructure could buy Playstation from Sony. The question would be if a new player like Amazon would have to get involved to motivate this transition or would the big 3 branch out to do this by themselves. Sony has Playstation now, so that's a current step in that direction.

 

Console supporters like to bring up how consoles can be so inexpensive to make because of economies of scale. Millions of consoles with the same chipset planned out ahead to be manufactured with parts at controlled wholesale prices with the belief that the massive inventory will sell out fast from marketing hype. That last part is how Destiny made its money back already . This is how PS4 was considered a great deal last year compared to a $400 PC *cough* Windows *cough* $100 *cough*. PS4 was pretty much sold at cost with a marginal profit. That scale of people with paid for console accounts would be gigantic transitioned to a streaming service. People wouldn't be paying for new console hardware anymore, just a small cheap device with internet access. The cost would all be subsidized from a giant pool of subscription fees where the companies doing the streaming would have the task of upgrading their hardware infrastructure offsite whenever they see fit.

 

There's gonna be a pricing and ease of use war between locally rendered games on consoles and PCs vs streamed games from servers. What would be cheaper? What would be the best investment? All this far off on the horizon while ISPs and big box stores drag their feet to prevent this from happening. For now Steam and piracy are the best options, but things will change. If the .exe in never sold to the public and no one has hardware to play it themselves anyway, that the only way to play will be streamed through a service piracy will be dead as we know it today.

[Lotus]

In-home streaming: maybe. This makes the custom built PC almost a necessity. Out-of-home streaming? It's still way too far off. Latency is too big of a problem for gamers who aren't completely lackadaisical about it.

[dlf]

Only real games I could probably see playing in 4k are: Tetris, peggle, bejeweled, mummy maze (if popcap ever re-released it for steam/consoles) . . . . . Think someone who made Trine 2 said the PS4 may be able to play it in 4k @ 120 hz (though I highly doubt that).

[EdwardERS]

In-home streaming: maybe. This makes the custom built PC almost a necessity. Out-of-home streaming? It's still way too far off. Latency is too big of a problem for gamers who aren't completely lackadaisical about it.

 

Is not Playstation Now out of home streaming?

[EdwardERS]

Only real games I could probably see playing in 4k are: Tetris, peggle, bejeweled, mummy maze (if popcap ever re-released it for steam/consoles) . . . . . Think someone who made Trine 2 said the PS4 may be able to play it in 4k @ 120 hz (though I highly doubt that).

 

I still don't understand why my TV says 120hz. 

[arnavvr]

I still don't understand why my TV says 120hz. 

 

Just because your tv supports 120Hz, doesn't mean that you can take the full advantage of it.

 

Running at 4K 120fps, you would need at least 3-way sli 980's at the very least

[EdwardERS]

Just because your tv supports 120Hz, doesn't mean that you can take the full advantage of it.

 

Running at 4K 120fps, you would need at least 3-way sli 980's at the very least

 

I don't see what connection would get 120Hz at all on my TV because HDMI doesn't support it in the first place.

[arnavvr]

DisplayPort

[TymmVonD]

I completely agree. Last gen lasted over 7 years and they function much differently than they did at release. As with Netflix, if you don't have the speed, it'll downgrade your quality on the fly. I can see people with fast broadband gaming at 4K and those on DSL gaming at 720p.. ...and I wouldn't doubt if XBLive/PsPlus creates a tiered service. For ex.-$20/year for 720p gameplay, $50/year for 1080p, and so on. I do believe current gen gaming will change throughout it's lifespan. Nothing proves that more than the lack of power they possess now. And framerate won't be a huge issue when frame interpolation latency advances. Most TVs now will interpolate 30fps to 60fps or more with a bit of latency. +25ms on my TV adding interpolation and 4K upscaling.

[ComradeHX]

DisplayPort

Peasants don't know what that is.

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Even IF people are able to stream game to peasant-box/station without serious latency, it would still make building custom PC a necessity(by that time, 4k gaming pc would be a lot cheaper).

Because you would pay(unless it's free, which isn't going to happen) way more for streaming service than you do with PC.

[nanox760]

Even if that already existed i will like to have a computer in case i dont have an Internet connection. I wouldnt like to pay for everything like you described, i dont like paying for access to a service such as playstation plus or xbox live, one of the reasons i chose to build another computer instead of going for a ps4.

[-TesseracT-]

I don't ever want to stream games, the quality isn't as good, it introduces latency, and you always have that fear of "what if my connection will suddenly drop?". Still, this might be something for a lot of people in the future. Interesting.