Let the kids battle it out over there, while the big boys sit back and enjoy the plethora of PS exclusives that are still to come.

No thank you I have had a datacap that made me chose between gaming or movies and if I didnt want to choose it cost me an extra almost 100$ a month. Keep the streaming nonsense.

what? game streaming is cool now? i don't buy it

i wish the streaming tech was like 5-10 years ahead so we could lose this unnecessary hardware already. and the fanboys would have to search for another thing to „war“ about.

I'm surprised Google and apple haven't tapped into the console market, definitely have the means to do it

Where can I find that controller attachment for my phone? That's the only handheld I need.

Good for Google, moving on from Google+ to their next failed project.

if they started the war I guess SONY is already ahead of them.

Umm PS now? PS now has been a thing for years, why is it ignored?

People seem to forget that 2 things about the companies that are tried to do this. One all of them have very small amount of servers and servers that are owned by somebody else. Fast forward to 2018 Microsoft has some of the most advanced and the most amount of servers all over the world. With them working on this using their own first party servers and having a dedicated Cloud team with 5G. This absolutely could work. They are in the best position than anyone else right now, especially with the fact they have a massive Library. Now Nvidia now also seems to work fairly well with a very good connection and a game they don't own their own servers all over the world. I believe Google has a lot of their own servers so they might be successful with this but they don't have the library. Personally I think whoever will do the best with this is the ones that have first party and most amount of servers and infrastructure behind great team

We have seen this coming for years now. Back in 2010 Onlive hit the scene and showed us what the future would look like. Unfortunately for Onlive they didn't have enough infrastructure in place both internally as well as externally to support the service... but anyone could see this was the eventual roadmap. There will still be a place for personal hardware... but this type of service will become the mass market platform for the future. You can cry about internet speeds not being there or that you live under a rock with limited internet all you want... the industry will push this forward and embrace it as it has tremendous upside for the companies from hardware costs being lowered to its impact on piracy rates of software.

Wait and see...

The term "console war" is still relevant??? LOL

Game streaming isn't going to replace anything and it has nothing to do with technical limitations. Here's the deal, video games, especially console and PC games, chug along predominately based on two specific factors: Fanboyism and hyperconsumerism.

1. Fanboyism: How often do you hear people justify their purchases based on what "faction" they're in? How often do you hear people say "I'm an Xbox guy" or "I'm a PC gamer" or "I've always been a big Playstation gamer" or "I've always gone with Nintendo because I'm a Nintendo guy?" I hear it CONSTANTLY. This console war idea is absolutely omnipresent and everlasting; people want to believe that they are part of a group or they are defined by which brand they've gone with, and that is a force that keeps the industry moving along. Streaming runs counter to this mindset: if you can play something on anything, where's the fanboy war? Where's the airheaded brand loyalty? Like it or not, believe it or not, people want a war. They want to believe they are part of one group fighting another group.

Fanboyism is the entire reason this current console generation has gone the way it has. The PS4 & Xbox One are interchangeable; they are basically the same thing. They launched with a bunch of awful garbage that made it completely pointless to get one at launch, like half the games that have come out this generation are remasters, everything is multiplatform, there's barely any difference or reason to go with one of these things over the other. But the Xbox One DRM stuff and Sony's response to it created a fake good guy and a fake bad guy; it's all just fanboyism. People where complaining about the always online thing and yet most games this generation are online only anyway; it's all just people wanting to believe they're in a group.

2. Hyperconsumerism. How often do you see people invoke that "shut up and take my money" meme? How often do you see people over explain their plans to purchase a game or over detail the things they bought like it matters? People post on social media saying "I'm going to buy X" or they'll post a photo of a game they bought, commenting on it as though it's something noteworthy. How often do you see people detailing what they bought in a steam sale, but they never play the games they bought? People are addicted to buying things, especially gamers. Like it or not, believe it or not, people get an endorphin rush by making purchases and this subconsciously makes it more fun to buy games than it is to play them. Streaming runs counter to this mindset. If you pay a subscription to access everything you don't have those endorphin rushes from individual purchases. Hyperconsumerism keeps things moving along. People want new consoles because they want a big purchase to make, they want a bigger endorphin rush. Consoles typically launch with a bunch of phoned in garbage that makes them largely undesirable, people buy them simply because they want to buy things. They want to buy a thing just to buy a thing.

Yea without super widespread access to very high speed internet and with ISPs pretty much given free reign to due as they want under Trump, Game streaming is far from taken over Disc based media. Its the future but not anytime soon, Id say at least another 10-15 years

I think that, judging by my inconsistent nVidia's Geforce Now experience (1440x900 with huge framedrops on my 4g/lte connection), which has Windows running machine in the background with totally inconsistent UI - Microsoft will have unprecedented lead with UI integration from the Xbox which they fully control. They can adjust it to any screen if they want, and they have developers who are already on the train. Google, Amazon and nVidia don't have anything but Windows machines to stream video-games. On the other side they control Windows as platform and only Steam have the chance to truly compete but it doesn't have the cloud infrastructure.

In the end real advantage will be compression technology and price. Who ever comes to state of 4k/60 with 40mb/s and unlimited games for 20$ per month will win.

Good for people who wants that but I'll stick to my traditional gaming console with game discs & some digital downloaded games.

It's gotta start some where.

Maybe in the future streaming will be the way forward. Its clearly not ready yet.

But had you showed me netflix working on a TV 15 years ago I would of been blown away.

Streaming may always be behind physical /digital by a few years, but one day it will come to a point where its a viable option.

Lol this article, Microsoft cloudx is an alternative or additional option to go with your physical Xbox. This isn't embarking on new territory, it's just bolstering Microsoft current offering which is nice but as far as we know not a game changer.

And google, this will probably be another one of their experiments they eventually abandon.

It will be an option maybe eventually a compelling one for everyone but it will remain just an option for the foreseeable. No need for the hyperbole, the tech from what I've read cant promise the same user experience across the board due to factors outside of these companies control. Content will remain king, not the system by which you deliver it.

Just how much would it cost Sony to purchase and operate data centers like Azure/AWS/Google Cloud?

If Sony is renting they'd either be losing on additional profit or their operating costs would be higher than Google's or Microsoft's thus passing the costs down to the consumer.

Sony has the content, now they gotta leverage their base into streaming, but why don't they just buy some data centers? They gotta have cash on hand considering they're destroying Microsoft at the moment.

We’ve had streaming before and it didn’t dramatically change gaming

Not going to be much different with these additions

you should all just chill. nobody said it will replace consoles. it's just another option to keep on playing when you're on the move, e.g. on your phone. Microsoft has already layed some solid ground work with game pass and xbox play anywhere (cross buy/cross play) only 3rd party publishers need to get on board for play anywhere now. let's see if ms (or google) can deliver. it was a smart move to put Bluetooth into that xbox one s controller.

I would be cool if Microsoft could put all of the 360 Game Pass stuff on streaming, i mean, i dont think streaming older games like that would be too hard to do.

Google will abandon it...mark my words...google can’t keep any projects alive like these for some reason

Game streaming has been available like 7 years ago. I don't know why the article present it like it is the new platform war and even more... Pretend game streaming is going to be the main option? We are far away from that.

As long as consumers have options to purchase the disk copy, ability to download digitally and now streaming - it won't be a problem.

Now, take away the disk permanently and we have a major problem.

Otherwise, choices are always welcome.

Finally, a console war Microsoft has a chance at again.

I tried psnow I cant lie it was epic . . I didnt have to download anything I clicked bloodborne and was playing it instantly . . . I dont like a all digital future I love owning physical media because it doesn't vanish in the future you always have it . . But I was amazed by psnow

I'm doing with gaming at digital. I'll start really catching up on my back catalog of a ton of unplayed games. I've Boughton into the digital era a bit but only dirt, dirt, cheap. Streaming? Not at all. They all lose my business when physical media dies. So long as I have a physical copy I'm in.

Streaming maybe the future, but do we really all want it right now? And more importantly, do you want to give control of your own personal games library over to a company who can decide to take your games down from server? Can they promise not to have any issues at all? After all, connections are still sketchy for many people. And what about when their servers go down for maintenance. Or if they get DDOS'd. Or experience a Sony like Hack. And getting online on a certain day can be a pain (Xmas day).
You may think that we are getting a great deal here with their offerings of game anywhere anytime and at a nice price, but really, in the long run, we'll be giving away control over our game libraries to companies.

I did like Sony's streaming service, it's just not worth paying that much every month.
I just don't play it that much, although I'm interested to see what comes of this.
You have my attention.

Reality vs that headline: It's chalk and cheese. Completely different.

My own take on streaming is that it is years away. It's clear that people who are serious about their games, the target audience for these kinds of service, are generally quite demanding in respect of image quality, frame rate and tight controls.

Currently, the size of the market who have an internet connection that would deliver an experience on a par with physical consoles is zero, and even 10 years from now, that number will be a fraction of the overall worldwide gaming population.

I'd rather see Sega get back in the console market over a shithole company like Google.

SEGA 4 Life

The US Press is just awful...Sony has been streaming for 5 years now, and is clearly working on the same platform as well as a standard console, but MS and Google started the war...right on lol. Ms and Google started the war that sony are winning..got ya.

You’re going to love it especially when you’re fighting that boss for 10 minutes and your girlfriend fires up netfix in the other room 😉

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau