In a recent Blog post, Google has announced that they will be testing their new Project stream starting from the October 5. The Project Stream is Google’s take on the Game streaming; they said that they have heard a lot complains from the users who play the games especially the AAA titles through different streaming services.
Earlier this year Nvidia also started its game streaming services. They specifically explained the issues in hand during the test cases. The “Technical testing” of the project will start on October 5, and a limited amount of users who fulfill the requirements to play the game through their Google Chrome browser would be able to play.
Google has partnered with Ubisoft in this project, and the testers of the streaming service will be allowed to play the Ubisoft’s flagship title Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which is releasing on the same day worldwide.
The requirements to test the service include a 25Mbps home internet connection, Google account, and Google Chrome browser. If you have all of these and are a US citizen who is at least 17 Years old, then you are eligible to test the service for free. For SIgn up follow the link here. The Google’s product manager Catherine Hsiao explains the probable reasons of Google’s venture in games streaming. She said,
“The idea of streaming such graphically-rich content that requires near-instant interaction between the game controller and the graphics on the screen poses some challenges. When streaming TV or movies, consumers are comfortable with a few seconds of buffering at the start, but streaming high-quality games requires latency measured in milliseconds, with no graphic degradation.”
The main fault in streaming a AAA game is the intense Graphics millions of the pixels have to be rendered at the same, and you have to stream all those pixels in real time with no latency whatsoever. She added, “Every pixel is powered by an array of real-time rendering technology, artistry, visual effects, animation, simulation, physics, and dynamics. We’re inspired by the game creators who spend years crafting these amazing worlds, adventures, and experiences. And we’re building technology that we hope will support and empower that creativity.”
Similar streaming service is in progress from the main producers in the Console market SONY and Microsoft. During E3 Microsoft’s CEO, Phil Spencer announced that they are working on a new virtual XBOX that will revolutionize our way of seeing games. They are partnering with AMD and will use their dataset to make use of their cloud capacity. SONY, on the other hand, is working on PlayStation Now that is the available service to stream games, they are reportedly working on increasing their bandwidth and quality so that the usual problems in streaming games are averted.
In conclusion, how we play games is bound to change in a few years, people would not have to buy the insanely expensive hardware components to play the game; they would only require a solid internet connection to play the games they love at its full potential.