Feels bad to buy an expensive piece of hardware, a $60+ game, and then be asked to pony up another hourly fee to play it on your tablet.
Of course, free game streaming was never a viable business model, so this isn't unexpected, but people aren't going to love the change either way.
This is about not buying the expensive piece of hardware. Then obviously it makes sense to charge you for the expensive hardware you're now using in the cloud. Or if you bought the expensive piece of hardware, but for some reason are choosing to use an Xbox in the cloud instead.
Game streaming from the cloud has never been part of the licensing of purchasing a game. It's always been part of a monthly Game Pass subscription. And with games in Game Pass, you don't even have to buy the game in the first place.
I get that some people may not love the change, but it's just more accurately reflecting costs, and there's absolutely no bait-and-switch here. Nothing has changed about what comes with a game you purchased. Nothing at all.
The industry is scared of recompiling and how AI has driven costs for people to host their own servers. That includes games like GTA where a lot of recurring revenue is from people spending money in online mode.
Microsoft would "solve" that issue, as well as normalize more players to spend monthly instead of once.
“Nothing changes” for your DVD/CDs when Netflix and Spotify arrived.
I personally have my doubts this is going to work, but the thing this model does open up is mainstream games having LLM driven NPCs.
Must take some pretty impressive technical debt to get to that point.
Perfect quote to summarize the direction of modern gaming. People are in stockholm syndrome over it though and aren't going to leave. Remember when Oblivion horse armor was over the line? Literally everything has gotten worse from that point despite no one being happy about it.
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PS1 = 102 million units sold
PS2 = 160
PS3 = 87 million
PS4 = 117 million
PS5 = 95 million (June 2026)
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These numbers would be bad alone, but two things make them especially awful. The first is that there's no meaningful competition anymore. XBox has completely dropped the ball whereas the PS2 initially had the original XBox (which wasn't great, but had novelty going for it), Dreamcast, GameCube, and others all viably competing in the same approximate domain.
The second is that when the PS2 launched in 2000 the US population was 281 million. Now it's 349 million. I'm using US as a proxy for rest of the world, instead of the global population, since we're mostly interested in the developed world as that's the market for game consoles. So the break-even point in terms of marketshare relative to the PS2 would be 349/281*160 = 199 million units sold, and that's if we assume significant competition.
So not only are people leaving consoles, they're leaving in droves. And that leaves the companies squeezing their shrinking player bases even harder, which will make people leave even more quickly. They've lost around 50% of their adjust playerbase over the past 20 years, and at this rate I doubt game consoles will even exist in 20 more years.
N64/PS1/Saturn: 146 million units sold worldwide
GC/PS2/Dreamcast/Xbox: 214
Wii/PS3/Xbox 360: 275
WiiU/Switch/PS4/Xbox One: 338
Switch 2/PS5/Xbox Series: 150
So since only the last generation has lower number of units sold, it seems to me that the market for console is either only recently declining, or the cycle is much longer and people takes more time to buy the new generation.
I'd also observe, vice versa, that after Nintendo jumped on the bandwagon of charging players to use their own internet connection that their sales started declining significantly. I don't know if it's causal; even people who chose to opt out themselves might not even really know. What I mean is that this feeling of getting nickeled and dimed is going to imperil fun in some impossible to quantify fashion, and if these various actions hit another completely unquantifiable breaking point, then you start losing players in yet another unquantifiable way - until suddenly you notice that people just don't seem to want what you're offering anymore.
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EDIT: And I had a chuckle seeing a topic just posted: "Disney Raising Prices Days After Confirming Ads Will Now Show Up on Every Tier" [1]
One aspect that springs to mind immediately looking at that timeline is the rise of mobile, it wouldn't have happened immediately at launch (around 2007) but has been a building wave that meant practically everyone has a games device in their pocket. For audiences of certain genres is all they need where they might have contributed to the overall picture of dedicated gaming devices, leaving other gamers and companies to balance the books for other genres that are left.
'Shareholder value' is another problem. Shareholders, in general, do not hold shares of companies because they want those companies to succeed, but because they expect returns from those companies. If they can get a 50% return and then have the company die in a fiery blaze, most shareholders would be perfectly fine with that so long as they were reasonably confident that they wouldn't, themselves, get burnt. So you have shareholders with no interest in the long-term similarly aligned with executives who have no interest in the long-run.
There's also probably more technical issues like discounting earnings over time. A penny earned today is generally considered significantly more valuable than a penny earned tomorrow by companies due to inflation, opportunity cost, and other such issues. So even if you think the long-term is relevant, the expected earnings cost would have to be dramatic to make it comparable to the impact of next quarter.
https://www.vgchartz.com/tools/hw_date.php?reg=Global&ending...
But from the PS4 onward, the consoles were made of a relatively lightly modified retail hardware that was sold for profit as quickly as possible. Both the PS4 and PS5 were being sold for profit (on the hardware), less than a year after launch. I think this was due to again companies squeezing a shrinking playerbase even harder, to try to maintain profit levels.
I think the obsession on next quarter, while pretending that there's no such thing as long-term consequences, is eating companies alive. Because there are absolutely long-term consequences.
They are not doing super amazing this gen. Reports have them selling 1/3rd the units of PlayStation 5, Game Pass has stalled, they apparently used a JIT manufacturing setup and so were much more affected by the component shortage, so a console that was $500 at launch is now $800.
Funnily enough, because they put in serials into Xbox One games for tracking they did recently launch a really cool disc to digital service that gives the best benefits of physical and digital.
But later on in the generation, Sony made big price cuts and went hard putting out very good exclusive games that people bought systems for. By the end, they beat out Microsoft in sales.
Then the lead-up to the Xbox One launch was such a PR disaster which the another comment covered. The PS4 continued getting great exclusive games while Microsoft's big IPs like Halo and Gears of War more or less fell out of relevancy if not had their brand destroyed by new entries that didn't impress fans. They spent way too much time and effort trying to make the Kinect the future of Xbox in hopes of replicating Nintendo's success with the Wii, years after the novelty of motion controls stopped impressing anyone.
The unfortunate thing is they dropped the ball so hard that Sony basically stopped trying in the latest generation. Sony is pissing people off left and right but they're still winning because they have no direct competition (Nintendo has been off doing their own thing since the Wii)
1. Concentrating on Cable (LOL in retrospect, but controlling the living room was always the plan so I get it) 2. Getting rid of physical games
People usually dont - until the levies break, and they do. The PlayStation 4 won its generation, because people left XBox for it, in part, over game sharing (or lack thereof)
So shocking in hindsight how ms never realized this formula as it was happening and let it wither on the vine.
Over the last year several people I know have independently told me console gaming just "isn't really as fun as it was." They're all buying fewer games and spending less time playing them (GTA6 will be an exception but for two of them it's the only console game they'll buy this year).
One is doing physical board games others are exploring retro gaming through emulation and loving it.
A lot of big tech companies want to bring back those time because they believe the few decades in between where people owned and controlled their devices and software in a very open computing ecosystem were a mistake. So the aim now is to give you a device you pay for and use but never fully control, and software or media that you rent but never own.
Right, but those people also don't own Xbox games. So this goes from "add-on fee to play the games your already own conveniently", to "buy a $60 game and then pay $/hour to actually play it"
Are you saving money in the second scenario vs buying a console? Almost certainly. But it doesn't feel that way to the person paying a big whack upfront and then also stacks of game time.
It turns out that the customer's perception of a product is pretty vital to its performance in the marketplace. The math can math just fine, but if the customer doesn't feel good about it, you don't make the sale.
Subscriptions try to soften the blow of a big purchase by lowering the monthly payments under your "casual expenditures" threshold. Upfront payments reward you with an immediate sense of ownership, and no recurring anxiety about affording the item.
Combining the two in this particular order is sort of the worst of both worlds - there's a reason car loans are always low monthly payments to start, with a balloon payment at the end, when you are maximally invested...
Balloon payment loans are very rare in the United States. I don't know where you live but I don't think you realize how unusual balloon payment loans are.
What (where?) in the world are you even talking about?
One of the silver linings of a subscription model is that you're able to stop paying and move when it's no longer interesting, here you're asked to invest in a platform that can be taken from you.
Are they really? You will "own" digital licenses to the games, but you will not have any way to play them once you stop paying for the subscription.
That doesn't feel like "ownership" to me...
You often cannot run even single player games without having connected to Steam (no need for account to be locked for this, but requires connectivity for one).
Multiplayer games almost always require Steam these days.
I used Steam as an example but applies to other platforms as well.
So yeah, I would say you pay for the license only, and you do not own the games at all, not anymore, and this has been true for a long time now.
They're not yours. Can you resell and recoup? Nope, digital licenses.
Can you buy a 2k computer and play them? You can't or won't, that's the whole reason you're using this system instead.
So you effectively have 60 bucks per game as a moat to hold you in while they boil the water.
(I wound up building a gaming PC, much more capable but much more than the cost of streaming over an equivalent lifetime - IF streaming services don't enshittify to cost more and deliver less over time, which we all know they will.)
> Feels bad to buy an expensive piece of hardware, a $60+ game, and then be asked to pony up another hourly fee
That's why people were confused. You made it sound like you couldn't use your hardware to play games. Why are you streaming from cloud PCs in the first place if you have the hardware?
It's a bit of a grey area, and it's not true that Nvidia needs to have a licensing deal. It's definitely against the license terms you get when you purchase a game through steam to run it on arbitrary hardware, but most (at least EU) courts would probably hold that if you own a game, you can run it on any hardware you have access to.
What happened was that when Nvidia just got started, they had an opt-out framework (for developers) instead of opt-in. At the time, some game developers felt like Nvidia was profiting off of their work unfairly, and posted publicly about it, and there was a decent-sized backlash.
However, in the meantime, other competing streaming platforms have gone with opt-out and there hasn't been much of an issue around it. I think most developers have come around to the idea that it increases game sales.
Is it??? I don't see anything in the Steam agreement about what hardware I am using?
Here's a random example from the Skyrim EULA:
[You may] use one copy of the Software for your personal, non-commercial use on a single home or portable console or computer.
...
[You agree not to] use or install the Software (or permit others to do same) on a network, for on-line use
...
Installation on a network server is strictly prohibited, and this Agreement shall not serve as a network license in any manner.Btw you are also free to violate the license agreement between you and Bethesda - in a lot of cases, national law precedes licensing agreements. And often because there is no consequence for you violating it. I.e.
I also violate Youtubes ToS by using adblock - so what?
If they are providing you a service through which you infringe someone's copyright (by playing a video game in violation of its licensing agreement) in exchange for giving them money, then they are risking a lawsuit. If they knowingly enable infringement (e.g. by rolling out a gaming service that lists and can automatically install games where they know, or could easily have checked, that the terms do not allow you to install on such a service), then they probably run a higher risk than if they don't knowingly enable it (e.g. by letting you rent cloud machines with GPUs, completely blind to what you're running on them), but in both cases they run a risk.
I'm sure there's a lot of law, and case law, that sets boundaries for this, but I could easily imagine cloud gaming falling on the wrong side of the boundaries.
Is this even legally enforceable? Technically I'd be in violation if I was playing the same copy of Skyrim on both my PC and my Steam Deck.
IANAL, but if it was ever tried, surely the clause would be struck down as invalid?
Cloud gaming is too small to be relevant in any way. That’s why it’s ignored.
They certainly aren't launching it on a different game-streaming service or intending to compete with it. Withdrawing doesn't make customers buy more of their games either - probably less.
So why would they be withdrawing from licensing agreements that are effectively free money for them?
Lawyer reasons: Because they have lost the rights themselves. They may have licensed things like artwork/music for sale during a fixed period and so ongoing subscriptions, continual resales, would require renewing those licenses. Just look at the recent re-release of Mike Tyson's Punch Out, which had to remove Mike Tyson.
Evil reasons: They want to publish a new version of a game, say SimCity 11. The target audience is largely people already playing SimCity 10. So they discontinue SimCity 10, turn it off, to "encourage" the customer base to forget SimCity 10 and "purchase" SimCity 11.
Petty rich guy personal reasons: Say you are George Lucas and you have published something embarrassingly awful, like a Star Wars Christmas Special. The die-hard fans love it, or at least want to see it. But you are embarrassed. So you discontinue any concept of streaming/rental/sales to hide your shame, regardless of profit motivations. Also, Han shot first!
The world of IP isn't just about selling someone something, it's about reselling the same person that thing many times over. So now I have my VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, digital streaming, 4K digital streaming, 4K digital streaming HD collectors edition, etc. variants.
And of course if there are multiple cloud gaming providers, they see it as an opportunity to extort each of them.
When GFN first came out it had all of the Civilization games -- and it worked great -- but then as other cloud gaming options appeared 2K pulled the whole catalog, presumably with hand out. When Civ VII came out they suddenly allowed it all again, not only to rekindle interest in the series and presumably because some people were only going to buy the game if they could play it on the platform.
For DRM and ban avoidance detection this means either false positives (which is bad rep) or if it's tuned to ignore those signals on specific service provider hardware makes it easier to do account sharing (and thus not buying the game).
Google stadia had special builds, very well could have been DRM-free.
Other streaming services like G-force now are closer to renting a virtual machine with some automation scripts on top. Where after connecting you use a slightly modified version of steam to install games (which publishers allowed to be streamed) almost like you would install them locally. Those definitely aren't DRM-free (except a portion of indie titles which are DRM free everywhere). While G-force now tries to limit access to underlying OS, surface is too large to trust the platform with DRM free builds especially if it allows installing multiple games and steam workshop mods. It's a bit more complicated as g-force now also has "ready to play" games which provide more stadia like experience with better integration.
So overall it means 2 cases: * special builds/game specific integration scripts from streaming platform -> requires extra work and agreement between streaming platform and developer/publisher, introduces uncertainty of how streaming platform limits account sharing (compared to the DRM publisher uses) * no extra work, just single checkbox in steam developer panel -> potential conflicts with finger printing, DRM and anticheat systems
Neither of 2 are no brainer free money. Either it's extra work and bureaucracy to negotiate, prepare and configure special build. Or it's conflicting with DRM systems.
It's trivial only for smaller indie devs who are uploading DRM free builds to steam anyway.
We'll be fine as long as we have an open platform to play good games from studios that haven't sold out, and without interference of anti-competitive gatekeepers, but we need to defend our right to use these open platforms - definitely the PC, and if we could find a way to align, I think we could regain ground on android/ios as well.
coming from someone who thought they'd refresh their PC in 2026 (planned this in 2024), i agree. getting priced out feels like the first step in the wrong direction.
Just a correction: Netcafes don't have to get special licences. I'm not aware of any such licences existing anymore. They just buy however many standard retail copies or online accounts they want. Sometimes a publisher will see the marketing value and will provide some copies/licences at no charge.
Going back 15-20 years or so, Valve used to run a "Cybercafe Program" that was a large monthly expense for cybercafes, but shut it down after a while because it wasn't worth the cost of administration. Now cybercafes buy Steam accounts same as any end user. Asking any publisher for a cybercafe or "commercial exploitation" licence always invoked the response "Um - no idea?" from any department you asked, coupled with "We're afraid to suggest anything" from the legal department and "just use standard copies I suppose?" from the marketing department.
- They have majority of popular games already installed but you need to log in to your own steam account and only have access to the games you already own.
- They provide an in-house account and offer games available in that account to be played. This is usually for cafes offering playtime for console games.
- Partnerships with games studios/publishers, but really I only know about this in Korean PC Bangs for specific games where some content is locked. For example in League of Legends, you unlock playable characters over the course of playing the game so a low level account might not have the full roster unlocked. If you log in your account to affiliated PC Bangs, you have all characters unlocked while playing there.
I've seen tech videos from LTT and alike where they build remote gaming rigs using windows Hyper-V with GPU passthrough to the guest - that is essetially what they should do, and let me rent a virtual machine with hardware support and low latency video compression. I don't see a reason you would need any licensing deals there.
I get that it was free before as part of a subscription, but now GPU's are more expensive. Nothing that you paid for up-front is being taken away. The subscription plans just changed is all.
Because they're trying to push a specific narrative.
well, unless you want to play some peer to peer multiplayer, then there is a sub you need to pay
Xbox Cloud Gaming gives you 50 hours for $12. You could game for 3333 hours to equal the Xbox Series X in price ($800). Say you want to depreciate the device over 7 years, that's about 500 hours of gaming a year, or ~9-10 hours a week.
I'd say that's a pretty reasonable limit for a low volume, casual gamer.
Half of all Americans watch more…..
It is a step towards normalization of anti-consumer habits.
To imply it being somewhat controversial, so people jump in and generate clicks.
Correct, that is why the "to stream games you bought" qualifier exists in the title :)
Right. Microsoft's handheld is just shy over $1000.
They want to eliminate that. AIs will open source their games otherwise.
AIs can't open source games, they can only assist in pirating them.
But pirates have historically done a pretty good job without AI.
Existing trends towards games with required online components, subscription-based content and microtransactions will no doubt continue, of course.
Not streaming, other than as an extra-cost option, because the margins on subscriptions and microtransactions are bound to be orders of magnitude higher while providing more value to the majority of players.
AIs should be able to use the same clean room reverse engineering techniques humans use in order to produce a legally clean open source game engine that can use the original game's copyrighted assets.
LLMs are created through mass ingestion of data, and so, by definition, cannot be a clean room. They are trained on the things that they're tasked with copying.
I'm afraid, the companies in question, have been more than happy to ingest pirated material.
And the forefront models have intentionally been trained on quite a bit of reverse-engineering.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_video_games...
A clean-room implementation is going to be much, much more effort than a "decompilation". Even a decompilation is, I think, more than the hype is claiming. You can't just point at a game, say "decompile it and make it work on Windows" and get a result in one shot. It will take playtesting, cycling around, QA, and time to polish it up. But that will still itself be much easier than an actual clean room implementation. Let alone getting sued by the owner anyhow and having to prove it was clean room in a typical chaotic individual dev environment.
Fixing this requires the end of free personal computing as we know it today. Every computer must become a walled garden. Everything the word "hacker" ever stood for must be destroyed.
And the game industry has continued to grow in spite of rampant piracy for decades, so there's not much to change here other than a slight reduction in the value of console exclusives if they can be easily vibe ported to PC (but the majority of players will play them on console anyway, as is the case with current console platforms that are easily emulated like Switch).
So at most, vibe ports will marginally lower the value of platform exclusives, and lead to fewer exclusives and/or shorter exclusivity periods.
I, for one, have no problem with this outcome.
It is not unexpected to pay 30p/kWh, which if you have a 500W graphics card is 15p/hr to play a AAA videogame, in graphics card cost alone. This ignores you will also be thrashing your CPU, which is maybe another 125W.
This is still a premium over that, but you don't need to buy the graphics card in the first place, so it's pretty understandable.
A more realistic number is 400-500W total power for the whole PC including the monitor. If a typical UK gamer spends 3 hours gaming every single day (or averages that, so 20 hours a week), they will add... £150 to their energy bills.
Lets compare that with two loads of laundry & tumble drying per week on eco mode (2 * 3.5kwh * £0.30 * 52) which is £110
or using a dishwasher twice a week: £40
It is not very much. And it's not subject to random licensing bait&switch, data center input lag, doesn't require the expensive monthly internet charges for the faster fiber tiers because you're streaming video data constantly, and you also have a PC to do with as you wish.
People are right to have an instinctive, emotional revulsion to game streaming. You can run the numbers and find a rational revulsion also.
They are also irrelevant? I'm not really sure what point you're making?
I think game streaming is fine. You're still buy the games, you can still play them locally. I really don't see the issue. The Stadia model was bad, sure, but "rent out a gfx card over the network" is not something I think is worth ruffling your feathers over.
That's the electricity cost for 1 year of operation.