[bryanlarsen]

It's input compensation they need, not input prediction. In other words, for every button press sent to the server, it should also send the frame time the user was seeing when they pressed the button. The server then applies hit detection / whatever for the input at that time rather than the current time.

So you'll see a visual glitch as the world jumps to "what should have been", but that's a lot better than you missing your shot / jump / whatever due to latency.

The fact that their controller is wifi and not connected to the computer gives a hint that Google is not doing this. Since the controller is independently connected, it can have a different latency than the computer.

[saynay]

"Since the controller is independently connected, it can have a different latency than the computer."

Not necessarily. Chromecast and the like already does side-channel communication to devices on the same network. Its how my phone can know that my TV is streaming something sent by my PC.

The controller could be sending input commands directly to the server, while also talking directly to the video streaming device.