Spielberg: Games Will Stream to TVs

[exfileme]

In an audio interview with Bobbie Johnson of The Guardian, producer/director Steven Spielberg said that consoles will eventually be bypassed altogether, replaced by games that will stream directly to the TV in some sort of game-on-demand format.

Spielberg: Games Will Stream to TVs : Read more

 

[SneakySnake]

I'm all for the video game streaming so long as it works well, which I can't see it doing with out some serious bandwidth - like 50 Mbps. It'll take at least a few years for this to go mainstream

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

I wonder why kind of PC gaming rig Spielberg has?

I can almost picture him now...03:00am, sitting in a dark office hunched over his keyboard, surrounded by empty cans of RedBull, wearing only a t-shirt and his tighty-whiteys screaming at the top of his lungs "But I need that f'ing health pack!! Heal me or I will give your ass a close encounter with my foot!!!"

 

[tenor77]

Maybe, but there are a few problems.
As Sneaky Snake said, bandwidth is a huge issue. With cable companies dreaming up ways to cap our bandwidth or do overage charges, this is a problem.
Next is consumers embracing this. People are on the edge about DD, so streaming or cloud gaming is a step beyond this.

Finally I worry that this will lead to pay to play service. I loved the arcades of my youth, but once I was able to buy and game and play it to my hearts content without paying each time I knew which was was better.

 

[spanner_razor]

No mention of Onlive - which claims to do just this - live streaming of games. Personally I don't see it happening but it's worth talking about here.

 

[socalboomer]

You know, compare Gameworks to Dave and Busters and, at least around here, they both are full. D&B is CROWDED! Wonder why? Hmmm. . .

Lots of respect for Spielberg, but he's not one I would look to for technology prediction - FILM technology? Sure. Game technology? No.

I think part of the reason why GW went BK a few years ago was the withdrawal of funding and, quite possibly, mismanagement. D&B is doing well (and now, so is GW) because they are marketing themselves as destinations.

Spielberg needs food. LOL

 

[marcchell0]

http/www.onlive.com/ Ehm Hello do people live under a Rock?

 

[jecht]

There was a guy talking about server-side computing, or cloud computing, back in the 90s, and he kept saying how he hated "all the little bits of computers" and how when you buy a computer "you have all these bits to put together". But that's what a lot of people enjoy, and a lot of people like to have their games in a tangible format that isn't dependant on anything but them and their hardware.

However, I would LOVE this system for renting games. If it worked well it would be much simpler, faster, and (hopefully) cheaper than a video store. And if anything ever crashed, you wouldn't be so bummed because there's no risk to lose anything but the ability to play a game you only spent a couple bucks on. But yeah, it probably won't be feasible for a couple years at least.

 

[jecht]

@marcchell0 and spanner_razor: Not sure how this is much different from OnLive except it would probably be integrated into a cable TV provider's on demand services, as opposed to playing over broadband internet. I do find it funny that it's not mentioned too, as this is pretty much exactly what Spielberg's talking about.

Does anyone have any experience with OnLive? How well does it work?

 

[mavroxur]

Well, since most cable companies force you to "rent" the equipment from them for an absurd monthly price and prohibit you from using cable boxes and dvr's from anywhere else, I can only imagine what the equipment lease would be on a set top cable box with gaming capability. A basic digital reciever with no DVR is like bucks, a basic low end DVR is 15, and HD DVR's go up from there per month in my area thru Time Warner. A gaming console / digital reciever would be insanely high (if it contained any sort of real gaming horsepower).

 

[SneakySnake]

@jecht

Onlive is in beta stages right now, and as such only a select few (with close proximity to the Onlive service depots and serious bandwidth) get to try it out

 

[anamaniac]

[citation][nom]bill gates is your daddy[/nom]I wonder why kind of PC gaming rig Spielberg has?I can almost picture him now...03:00am, sitting in a dark office hunched over his keyboard, surrounded by empty cans of RedBull, wearing only a t-shirt and his tighty-whiteys screaming at the top of his lungs "But I need that f'ing health pack!! Heal me or I will give your ass a close encounter with my foot!!!"[/citation]

Ha, nice.
I can imagine it too.
Man has done some wonderful stuff, me luff him long time.[citation][nom]tenor77[/nom]Maybe, but there are a few problems.As Sneaky Snake said, bandwidth is a huge issue. With cable companies dreaming up ways to cap our bandwidth or do overage charges, this is a problem.Next is consumers embracing this. People are on the edge about DD, so streaming or cloud gaming is a step beyond this.Finally I worry that this will lead to pay to play service. I loved the arcades of my youth, but once I was able to buy and game and play it to my hearts content without paying each time I knew which was was better.[/citation]

Fir bandwidth, let's all switch to fibre! And once we've all had our All-Bran, we can all invest in Fiber-Optic services. Bandwidth issues taken care of. Theoretical bandwidth of a single fiber is more than some countries total bandwidth.

The pay-per-play also might be extremely expensive for hardcore gamers, such as arcades were.
It'll be alright though for those who only want the occasional hour, instead of paying $500 for a PS3 and $50 for a game they use a hour a week.

 

[starryman]

No sh#Q$$!t Sherlock. Jeez does Spielberg get another academy for this revelation? Another $25M for this prediction. Next Spielberg prediction, it directly streams into your brain.

 

[Zingam]

More means to make America fat!

 

[Guest]

... WOW.
I wish this article did more justice to gaming history. Plus sorry to inform Spielberg but this is not really a prediction of something 'new'.

Maybe I'm old, but let me impress upon your minds what was once a most glorious invention of it's time: SEGA CHANNEL.
Around a 50 game library, which shuffled with new games from every week to month. Flat monthly subscription fee and you could download whatever game you wanted directly into your sega genesis. It existed, was fast, and a simple child could browse the library of games.
It looks like SEGA was the company looking outside the box, and coincidentally, trying to serve gamers at present (arcades mentioned in the article).

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

I don't care what people say but I love arcades. I'm not talking about the flashy D&B types(even though I like them too. I carry 2 of their gold cards in my wallet if I need them). Being a product of the coin-op generation of the 80's I believe you can't beat the old-school, pitch dark room, rows of standups, all blaring their noise at the same time. As a teenager I worked in an arcade like this and I have always vowed to build one in my home one day.

 

[Dave K]

It shows that Spielberg... while having a genius for movies... doesn't understand the way technology is changing the world. He's living inside the box and apparently is unable to see that he box is doomed.

The "TV" is a dying technology... games will NOT be playing on TV's in years to come... but rather - "TV Programming" will be playing on what are in reality computer monitors. TV will be just one more media stream that consumers will get to choose from, and it's relative importance... already significantly reduced as the star of the internet has risen... will continue to erode.

 

[Guest]

I doubt it...
I rather see computer games being created to playback a movie. Current computer technology is so vast they could put a 7 hours movie on a 600MB CD. The quality of the movie just depends on the quality of graphics card you have.

It'd be a great boost to the sales of graphics cards. Instead of games, movies with computer generated images.
I suspect the visual will be quite boring from a laptop with an Intel integrated graphics card, but it might look pretty cool with more modern NVidia or ATI Radeon 4770/4800 cards!

 

[demonhorde665]

i think games on demand have a future int ehg ame industry BUT THEY ARE NOT THE FUTURE , i think hardware , both pc and console will still hae THE place, on demand systems would require that the dvr BE a consoel as well as cable /sat receiver , or inthe elast it would have tob e streamed aka quality loss for those that don't ahve higher bandwidth. then don't forett eh system fact hardware lovers like myself that enjoys ahvign a console or puttign my own pc together , will stil want the hardware and will still goa nd buy physical games .. afterall we have had VoD and PPV for ages ... and peopel still buy dvds/blu rays

 

[demonhorde665]

oh and if the big companies buy this up adn stop making physical game media , ther will jsut be smaller companies repalicng them , becuase as a consumer I will never do "game on demand" and as some one goign itno the game industry after college , i will never swtich ot development only on this system , i'd ahve to make games taht folks can own , it's jsut the way i am