[5636588]

I'm fortunate enough to own a gaming PC, but I wish cloud gaming was around when I was younger. All my buddies owned consoles or PCs, and I felt like a sore thumb when they were discussing the latest titles. There are a lot of people who just can't afford even the cheapest Xbox One but have enough money for a month's worth of Game Pass and can play Starfield. My younger self would definitely have been okay with latency and fuzzy graphics. This isn't hypothetical; I still remember the days when OnLive was around and could play that Disney racing game Split/Second for free for half an hour, I was AMAZED back then.

Sometimes I feel like people dismissing cloud gaming do not consider how the advent of cloud gaming has opened doors for those who previously couldn't afford traditional gaming setups. It's not about the technical specifications; it's about making gaming accessible to more people, regardless of their financial constraints.

[TheChaplain]

I'm not buying that argument at all.

Today there are a ton of cheap 2nd hand console available on different markets, and much thanks to hard-copies they still bring plenty of enjoyment for a cheap coin. The latter also allows access to games no longer published or available for sale.

Cloud gaming will ensure older games will be entirely at the mercy of the streaming provider to keep them up to date and compatible with their technology. Once not, they're gone forever.

[Reubend]

> Today there are a ton of cheap 2nd hand console available on different markets, and much thanks to hard-copies they still bring plenty of enjoyment for a cheap coin.

You're missing the point of the parent comment. They aren't saying they had access to no games at all, but rather that they couldn't afford to play the latest games.

Nvidia's cloud gaming service costs $10/month, compared to $10 a month just for multiplayer access on an Xbox or PlayStation plus the $300-$500 upfront cost of buying the console itself.

So there's no doubt that even with the savings of a used last generation console, you would still save a lot of money with cloud gaming.

Just for clarity, I'm not necessarily saying I like cloud gaming. I think if you can afford the hardware to do local gaming, it's a better experience. But it's way more expensive to render everything locally for obvious reasons. Even just the electricity needed to power a gaming PC is expensive.

[hx8]

> Even just the electricity needed to power a gaming PC is expensive.

The average electrical energy rate is 10.3 cents per kwh. A gaming PC might consume 750 watts. So it cost an average of 7.7cents/hr to power a gaming PC. Hardly expensive.

Of course, both cloud and PC gaming requires things like router, monitor, etc that consume electricity. I think it's fair to assume those things are equal between the two setups.

Edit: Average cost is for US. 750 watts is a good power budget for a gaming PC, but of course machines can be made that consume much more power or gaming capable machines can be made that consume less.

[Already__Taken]

As that one kid on 56k while everyone else was on broadband. You didn't miss what you think you missed. Being the worst in the group may not be better than not being in the group at all.

but I hope cloud gaming can deliver that.

[AndyMcConachie]

But it doesn't work, at least not yet. I live in an urban area with a fast Internet connection. Yet everytime I've tried cloud gaming on my Xbox it's been janky as hell.