For gamers, the clouds are rolling in | Boston Globe

In other gaming news, see Why the Cool Kids Are Playing Dungeons & Dragons | NYT

"Today, PlayStation Now is the biggest cloud gaming service, with over 750 titles on offer. The market research firm SuperData estimates it generated $143 million in revenue for Sony in 2018. That’s barely a rounding error for Sony, which took in $21 billion last year. Sony declines to provide a subscriber head count, but it’s safe to say PS Now hasn’t had much of an impact.

But if companies like Google and Microsoft are willing to gamble on game streaming, I expect quite a few consumers to play along, at least for awhile.

The newcomers must get the technology right. Both Google and Microsoft have dozens of cloud computing centers worldwide that should be capable of running high-end games with hardly any lag or on-screen flicker. In 2010 the pioneering OnLive system worked fairly well, at a time when home broadband connections averaged less than five megabits per second; today those average a respectable 95 megabits per second, more than good enough for gaming."

For gamers, the clouds are rolling in | Boston Globe