Well… isn’t this just a great co-incidence. Ask and you shall receive, I suppose. I’ve seen the demo and I’m starting to believe it. This week Google has announced project Stream, a game-streaming service for Chrome. Streaming Services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music have transformed the modern entertainment industry but so far, the gaming industry has not seen much, if any, developments in this sense. This week Google and Ubisoft showcased a demo where players could stream the latest Assassin’s Creed through Chrome. This could genuinely be revolutionary, but questions still remain. How could it handle Battle Royale or MMO games such as Fortnite where 100 people are streaming the same lobby? How reliable must your internet be? How can we run all of this through Chrome?
Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, and partners with Google in this project, said this week that he thinks that soon we will see less home hardware needed. Once again this could be huge. The enormous front-load price of buying a PC or Modern console hugely reduces the approachability of gaming for people interested in trying it out. Having to front up anywhere from €300 to €1500 for a reliable gaming system turns people off; many try a cheaper hobby. While Google seem to be keeping their cards close to their chest on this one, if they could pull this off then they could dominate a hugely saturated market with one fell swoop.
Other companies have attempted to launch streaming services, but hardware, software and internet limitations have often led to limited success. With both EA and Microsoft announcing streaming services at E3 this year, are we seeing the beginning of a long overdue change coming to gaming? Personally, I think that Steam could be the dark horse to watch out for in this particular market. With Steam’s regular cheap prices as well as their huge catalogue of games, could we see their Steam Link turn into something even bigger than Google’s?
Only time will tell with all of this hugely exciting news, but what can be said is that we shouldn’t get our hopes up. What we are talking here would be a huge step forward for modern gaming and could change the industry as a whole forever. Previous issues with streaming services such as lag and lack of game response made us all think this was pie in the sky stuff, but with the sheer scale of Google’s servers. If they can pull this off, then we can all get very excited.