Will Game Plus (Yahoo! Games) put an end to the struggles of cloud gaming?

Hello, this is Nakauchi from the technical sales department.

On July 18th, Yahoo! Games launched the Yahoo! Game Plus

You can enjoy two types of games: HTML5-based games and cloud games.

HTML5 games have recently been launched by Rakuten, and BXD (a new company jointly invested by Bandai Namco and Drecom) has announced their services.

• Rakuten: Rakuten Games
• BXD: Service start date undecided (as of July 23, 2017)

So I thought there would be another wave of browser games (I wrote a blog ), but at first I thought, "Cloud games? Huh?"

However, after thinking about it, I will write about this story later.

What exactly is cloud gaming? That's what I'm talking about

What is cloud gaming?

This is the explanation from Wikipedia.

Information such as the user's controller operations and voice from the microphone is transmitted via the Internet line and cable TV line, and all calculations, processing, and communication based on this information are performed on the server (cloud), and the calculation results are simply video and audio. It will be streamed to users as ^[4] . Therefore, like a thin client

Cloud gaming - Wikipedia

Simply put, the game runs on a server and is sent to your device as a video, so you can play the game with beautiful graphics even if your device doesn't have high specs.

It's such a wonderful cloud game, but the provider company is struggling.

square enix

2015/8/14 Streaming service DIVE IN ends.

2016/1/6 Shinra Technology disbands

Shinra Technology was a subsidiary of Square Enix HD that aimed to launch a cloud gaming platform, but it was disbanded after just a year and a half.

G-cluster

2016/5/23 The provider, G Cluster Global Co., Ltd., went bankrupt, and Broadmedia GC Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Broadmedia Co., Ltd., took over the business.

G-cluster official homepage

PlayStation Now

There are many opinions that it is expensive.

If you search for "psnow high" on Twitter, you'll get quite a few hits.

It's certainly expensive. . .

With this amount, there will be no dormant users.

There's a reason why it's a struggle and why it's expensive! !

Of course.

I think there are two biggest weaknesses of cloud gaming.

1. game delay
2. server cost

These two.

First all , regarding the game delay, this is a problem that affects the user side.

Due to the structure of the game, where the processing is executed on the server and the video is sent to the client terminal, delays are unavoidable. It's fine for RPGs, but fighting games and shooting games in the world of tenths of a second would be difficult.

The closer you are physically to the server, the longer the lag will be.

There are a certain number of users who dislike this issue.

And number 2 is a problem on the provider side.

Due to the structure of cloud games, server costs are considerable.

Regardless of whether players come or not, the server must be prepared.

It would be accurate to say that the usage fee for PS Now has been kept down to 2,315 yen/month as a result of corporate efforts.

So, here's why I thought Game Plus would work...

Because Yahoo has IDC Frontier as a subsidiary! !

IDC Frontier is a server company. We also have huge data center It is still being expanded.

Furthermore, we have the backbone to provide users with servers equipped with NVIDIA's high-performance GPUs.

Reference page: IDC Frontier is the first in Japan to offer NVIDIA's high-performance GPUs on an hourly basis

I think other game companies will have to either build new server infrastructure or rent it from a server company, but either way, I think the amount of money that Yahoo will spend on IDC Frontier will be significantly higher.

This problem should be a big advantage in continuing the service.

If we can enrich our title lineup and attract a user base that doesn't mind delays, I think we have a chance of winning.

By the way, I played FF13 on Game Plus, and I didn't notice any lag.

Lastly, please refrain from complaining that Sony has So-net.