Topic 'Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -' in forum '' - dslreports.com

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 09:36:18 EDT

Rekrul posted :

FAIK, TI only had ONE extended basic module they released. I do recall someone released a "super extended basic" module but it really didn't catch on.

As I recall, I tried the programs on just the plain TI BASIC and with both extended and super extended cartridges and they would always abort with some kind of error. I suppose the disk images could have been corrupt, but it seems strange that all of the programs would load fine, but not run. Then again, this was on an emulator and I'm not 100% convinced of the accuracy of TI emulators.

said by tc1uscg:

Always wanted to get my hands on an Amiga setup but ended up going down that IBM clone path and lost my way. ;-)

The C64 was my first computer and from there I went to the Amiga, which I stayed with until I started using a Windows 98 system shorty after 2000.

I love the Amiga, but the line basically stagnated while Commodore sat on their asses doing next to nothing with it. By the time they produced the A1200 with the AGA chipset, Intel systems had already moved beyond what it could do. Also, while their decision to continue making the systems usable from floppy disk helped keep costs down, it limited development of software for it and caused it to fall further behind the competition.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 09:12:47 EDT

tc1uscg posted : FAIK, TI only had ONE extended basic module they released. I do recall someone released a "super extended basic" module but it really didn't catch on. I did have one of the monster expansion systems but before that, I had purchased a expansion box from some company in 87. It was half the size of a cigar box but had built in speech, ex-basic, ran 4 external drives and a 1200baud modem. My TI acoustic coupler modem got retired thank god. Always wanted to get my hands on an Amiga setup but ended up going down that IBM clone path and lost my way. ;-)

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 18:51:02 EDT

Rekrul posted :

said by tc1uscg:

My son has a 99/4A. But I have a couple emulators and many of their cartridges. He got the 4A to learn some basic, Extendbasic, Pascal and FORTRAN (all came with he console when he got it). But I digress. Those ROMS will come in handy when you are locked away in ones bunker, staying out of site of the zombies and ANTIFA types playing old time games. Not to mention nibbling on some freeze dried corn as a snack. :-)

The one thing I never liked about the TI99/4a, and other computers to some extent, was that there were so many different BASIC cartridges and components for it. A friend gave me a bunch of disk images, but I couldn't get most of the software to work because it all depended on having the right extended BASIC cartridge plugged in. Even some of the games had both a cartridge and a disk to make them work. Then various pieces of hardware needed the right interface card in the expansion box.

By comparison, the C64 was more expensive, but simpler. You buy a disk drive, it plugs right in. Buy a Commodore branded printer, or one made specifically for the C64 and it plugs right in. Atari joysticks just plugged in, etc. Almost everything was plug & play. Of course the downside was that the floppy drive was probably the slowest of all the 8-bit computers, but at least it was miles faster than using cassettes. And there were speedup solutions for it.

I have a couple TIs I've rescued from the trash, but I don't have any cartridges for them and never use them. I was going to give them to my friend, but he says he already has 3-4 of them.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 15:55:08 EDT

tc1uscg posted : My son has a 99/4A. But I have a couple emulators and many of their cartridges. He got the 4A to learn some basic, Extendbasic, Pascal and FORTRAN (all came with he console when he got it). But I digress. Those ROMS will come in handy when you are locked away in ones bunker, staying out of site of the zombies and ANTIFA types playing old time games. Not to mention nibbling on some freeze dried corn as a snack. :-)

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 18:38:07 EDT

sims posted : On a related note;

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn't making enough money, so they're shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

»boingboing.net/2019/04/0 ··· ies.html

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 18:30:41 EDT

Rekrul posted :

said by tc1uscg:

I failed to mention in an earlier post, emulators for Sega and PS games w/roms can be found but not as easy as before.

It's been my experience that while a couple prominent sites with ISO files for the disc-based systems shut down, there's no shortage of sites carrying ROM files for the cartridge-based systems. Also, the sites carrying software for 80s computers like the Atari 800 and C64 don't seem to have been affected.

Even for ISO files, there are several large sites around that have almost everything. While EMUParadise was a huge loss as they had a huge library of games, they didn't have everything. I'd often find that they were missing the US version of a game, or a Japanese game that I saw in a YouTube video and went looking for. For some reason, they didn't seem to have any of the "PSP Minis" games.

said by tc1uscg:

Sometimes, you just needa simple non 4k video game. Heck, I have astroids on my android phone LOL. Anyone ever play "Parsec" on the TI994A? Played it this past weekend. Still a fun game but hunt the Wumpus, well, never really understood why people liked that game.

I have an older friend who still likes to play various TI games. I was always partial to the C64 myself. I can still have fun going back and playing some Atari 2600 games, or games for the Intellivision. Maybe they don't hold my interest as long as they used to, but I don't look down on most of them.

There are still PS1 games I've been meaning to play. I still have to finish my playthrough of Spyro The Dragon (got stuck on one of the flying levels!) and Burnout 2 & 3 on the PS2.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 18:19:39 EDT

Rekrul posted :

said by nethead:

I really don't think *in general* it can be successful because of input latency. You might be able to raise a generation on it who will accept it, but anyone who has experienced gaming *without input lag* isn't going to put up with it.

Game streaming might take a while to reach an acceptable level, but digital-only distribution will be here in a the very near future.

20 years from now, people will still be able to play Atari 2600 games, either on the real hardware or in emulators, but how many PS5/Xbox Two (or whatever they call it) games will still be downloadable? Will you even be able to connect to the service with those consoles?

Piracy MIGHT help preserve the games, IF the consoles can be cracked/jailbroken and people can figure out the (most likely) encrypted hard disk formats that they use in order to back up the files.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 15:08:45 EDT

firedrakes posted : again with the balloon size of data 25 to 50gb will be on the small size. this is not even doing gaming 4k(which is not the same as video and has no standard).

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 13:15:27 EDT

sims posted : It would be trivial for them to switch to cards but the discs aren't holding them back as it is (well probably in install speed and durability) it's the ship it now patch it later mentality that's hurting physical media.

Client side will continue to be the norm but the game sizes are only going to get bigger.

Streaming will allow people to use cheap underpowered hardware (probably chromebooks) to game on and it will allow closer to instant play rather than waiting on your 25Mbps connection to pull down the latest 4K game.

As it is now the current gen consoles don't require connection all the time but do require a heck of a lot of updates that require the console itself have access to the net.

Taking consoles to a friends house or to work to update it isn't uncommon at this point in time.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 12:50:30 EDT

sims posted : Yeah like 25GB or 50GB+ for large ones that's not too bad on a 25Mbps "broadband" connection (like ~5 hours for 50GB) I've been seeing cox ads for 300Mbps which would be like ~45min for 100GB.

We are already at a point where many games are now requiring day one updates that are as large as the original disc

So if i'm going to have to download 25GB+ with or without the disk I don't think i'd be saving that much time.

Now if they were to include everything on the discs and work towards making single digit GB patch sizes discs keeping discs would be great but I don't see that happening.

Anyone without good broadband is going to be at minimum days behind everyone else who does even assuming they only have to download the patches.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 11:06:54 EDT

tc1uscg posted :

said by aaronwt:

Yes. I've been all digital on XBox since the Xbox One was released(the same with the PS4). There is no way I would ever want to go back to using discs.

My kids could not just accept one platform. So, I have a Wii, PS2, 3 and 4. Xbox 360 and One. All hooked up to a 40 inch TV and Overhead projector lighting up a 120 inch screen. For me, I've purchased a few games in the past and I refuse to by anything that's ONLINE ONLY. Sometimes, I just want to go driving around (gran turismo) or shooting "things" (Ghost recon, sniper, etc). And I want to do it ALONE. But hey, I'm in my 50's so I rather settle down with a few beers, play a good game of Delta Force on the PC and I'm good. I remember buying larger hard drives for the 360 and giving my son a big external HDD for his Xbox 1 but seriously, I've been on the road, with a 360 hooked up in our minivan and the kids playing games on a trip. No online requirements needed. They should never walk away from client based games IMO. And they could get away from disc's if they had adopted using SD type cards instead. Faster, larger, then disc's. Again, IMO.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 10:56:53 EDT

tc1uscg posted : I use my PS3 mostly to play BlueRays in my home theater. Got a few first shooter and driving games but it's got a nice menu system for watching movies off my media server.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 10:54:34 EDT

tc1uscg posted : I failed to mention in an earlier post, emulators for Sega and PS games w/roms can be found but not as easy as before. Sometimes, you just needa simple non 4k video game. Heck, I have astroids on my android phone LOL. Anyone ever play "Parsec" on the TI994A? Played it this past weekend. Still a fun game but hunt the Wumpus, well, never really understood why people liked that game.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 10:49:42 EDT

tc1uscg posted : Bingo. That's why all the other game manufactures from the 90's went crazy with game roms started showing up and those coding emulators were to them as bad and Bonnie and Clyde.

That's why many people who had the chance to get them, got all the DS roms, TI994A roms, SNES roms, etc... Sure, you can "buy" consoles today from licensed manufactures with a few dozen games on it but if you wanted to play some retro stuff, good luck finding it.

Turning your boxes into subscription based is a mistake. Just like the idiots who think cloud computing is the cats meow and should REPLACE client installed/based software. It has it's place but should not be your only option.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 10:32:50 EDT

tc1uscg posted : Yep, and there's coming a day when your OS will be network based (back to dummy terminals) but thought MS denied it, it's coming. Apps are already there but trying to explain that when you don't have any type of network connections (and I've had people in the field that have had t his issue many times), things just won't work. It's clear when the revenue stream starts to dry up, they figure a way to dumb down your consoles (or PC's) to get more from you.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 09:56:01 EDT

nethead posted : I really don't think *in general* it can be successful because of input latency. You might be able to raise a generation on it who will accept it, but anyone who has experienced gaming *without input lag* isn't going to put up with it.

Professional gamers will complain about 'lag' when they have 5-10ms more than usual. Any kind of game streaming platform is going to come with more than 5-10ms additional lag.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 05:33:35 EDT

firedrakes posted : well stupid is a thing........ looking at you. do you realized that most likely next gen games will be 100gb or more??? a disc install will be way faster.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 05:19:28 EDT

firedrakes posted : god sake now. do you not understand the sizes of video games now......

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 02:01:12 EDT

Rekrul posted :

said by sims:

Already happens a lot

I know and the problem is only going to get worse.

said by sims:

I do care and that is going to require legislation, not to force them to do so but to not sue out of existence anyone who decides to do so if they refuse.

Even if there was legislation protecting people, how do you preserve a game when you don't have access to its code? Streaming games are run on the server and all you ever get is the video display. Nobody but the company ever has a copy of the code.

said by sims:

They could definitely at least attempt to accommodate those with little or no connectivity tho.

Like being able to download DLC elsewhere onto a drive and then install it when you get home rather than a net connection being the only option.

They'll never do that. Making people reliant on the connection to the servers is the entire point of doing this. Sure, it's probably cheaper for the company than producing physical discs, but the real draw of download/streaming is that it gives the company total control over the games.

As I understand it, there's a backup option on more modern consoles that lets you make a copy of your DLC. The problem is that while it can be restored if you need to replace the hard drive, if you replace the entire console, the backup is useless because the serial number won't match and it thinks you're trying to pirate the content.

Maybe it means I'll be left behind, but I refuse to accept this crap.

True story; I have a PS3 that I was given, but I never use it. I love the older Burnout games and I was prepared to buy Burnout Paradise, especially since there was a version labeled as the "ultimate". I actually went to the store ready to buy it. Luckily for me, they didn't have it because I later found out that it doesn't include a large amount of the DLC. There's no way to get that for the PS3 other than going online and hoping it's still available, and then you can't back it up, as detailed above. They put out Burnout Paradise Remastered for the PS4 with all the DLC. Great, a complete copy, right? Putting aside the fact that I don't have a PS4 and don't plan to buy one any time soon, there's already been a bunch of patches for it, which of course aren't included on the disc, and at this point it's unlikely that they'll be putting out a physical edition with all the updates.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 01:45:58 EDT

Rekrul posted : Just a

said by nethead:

Are you *the* Rekrul (of StarCraft fame) or is it just a coincidence? :P

Just a coincidence. I've never played Starcraft.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 22:15:06 EDT

kalm12347 posted : It will probably be fine as far as downloaded games go.. With emulators out and cfw'ed consoles giving people the ability to backup their games, someone somewhere on the net will have a copy. I certainly have a problem with piracy when you have the choice to buy the game and support the developers. But if the game is no longer available? Don't care. Pirating a game no longer available harms no one.

As far as streamed games go? It depends on how much of the game is sent over to the console. If a good portion of it is streamed over, it might be possible to reverse engineer them. Maybe. If it is pure video streaming of the game's video feed while transfering the player's inputs, it is likely going to be impossible to gain access to those games once they go down

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 19:40:18 EDT

Cal posted : Also why I am not interested in consoles...the last one I bought (PS3) is collecting dust as I don't even use blue-rays... just too easy to get excellent Bdrips at 1080p online. That said I can see why people might pay to netflix on a console but if you have a mid/high tier PC...consoles just become paperweights IMO.

The thing is I don't "just game" but my PC IS my media center for gaming, movies, tv shows...soon for VR, work, encoding. The PC allows me to do pretty much everything I want or need for only the price of my unlimited cable internet connection and maybe a netflix sub. I just dont see myself paying for another costly sub just to game and then still be stuck needing a half decent PC for all the other stuff I use a PC for.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 17:40:47 EDT

sims posted :

said by Anone7dc9 :

Both the PS 5 and whatever XBOX calls it's next console will still use discs.

Have they stated that? Even if they have at this point i'd find it at least mildly surprising if they do include disc drives with the next gen.

Like even in PCs many new machines don't even include a disc drive and blu-ray drives never really caught on.

For PC gamers it's a bit less of an issue as backups are usually possible and not too overly difficult whereas they usually aren't even possible on consoles due to DRM.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 17:32:58 EDT

sims posted :

said by Cal:

I would put forth that p2p games have pretty much failed barring some few here and there and most people play f2p or b2p now. This makes me wonder why people think we would be willing to pay a month sub just to be able to stream our games?

People used to pay for a xbox live gold subscription just for the privilege of being able to pay for netflix on their xbox one.

You also get cheaper hardware as with streaming you don't need near the power to display as you do to actually run it so your $150 computer can stream the latest games even if it can't actually run them.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 17:11:58 EDT

anon posted :

said by sims:

Don't forget microsoft is supposedly releasing a version of the xbox one without a disc drive next month.
This is going to be a trend and I really do think at this point that the next generation of consoles will be download/stream only even if they are able to play offline.

Both the PS 5 and whatever XBOX calls it's next console will still use discs. The discless console is just another sku of the XBOX One S. Not even the X version. They are still going to sell the disc verizon. This is for people that want to save money who also don't care about blu-ray or buying physical media. Also guess what, most PC gamers don't buy disc anymore and haven't for years.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 16:37:40 EDT

Cal posted : I have not looked into this much but even though I have a fairly good cable connection I have pretty much zero interest in Stadia as a gamer. I play many offline single player games and my online games or mmo's are more often than not b2p or f2p..I am not interested in paying a monthly fee on top of my internet monthly fee to play a game.

I would put forth that p2p games have pretty much failed barring some few here and there and most people play f2p or b2p now. This makes me wonder why people think we would be willing to pay a month sub just to be able to stream our games?

I build our PC's here at my home and my next ones will have to be VR capable and this add one more reason why games as a streaming service has zero interest to me.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 15:23:15 EDT

sims posted : It's super convenient as long as you have broadband.
You don't have to contend with lost or scratched discs.
You don't have to have local storage for your entire library.

However you lose the ability to resell/trade/gift/transfer your games.
If you get into a conflict with the company they can disable your account removing access to any games you've paid for.
Content is still priced as if you still had those rights.
Of course the counter to that is that the digital copies pay for indefinite online hosting but that likely isn't comparable in cost and as history has so far shown is nowhere near indefinite.

That said I don't like discs and none of the problems I mentioned above are inherent they are just issues you run into due to the hyper aggressive DRM everything policies they like to use.

Currently you can even borrow console games discs from public libraries but you can't do that with digital only games because the console makers don't allow it.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 15:22:17 EDT

nethead posted : Are you *the* Rekrul (of StarCraft fame) or is it just a coincidence? :P

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 14:43:29 EDT

aaronwt posted :

said by sims:

Yes. I've been all digital on XBox since the Xbox One was released(the same with the PS4). There is no way I would ever want to go back to using discs.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 14:09:13 EDT

sims posted :

said by Rekrul:

When a game is download only/streaming, it's not going to be available forever. At some point, the company will decide that it's not worth keeping online and they'll nuke it. Or the licensing deal will run out and they won't have any choice in the matter.

Already happens a lot

Usually it's online only games that run for a few years then they shut the servers down leaving everyone with coasters.

said by Rekrul:

Maybe you don't care about older games, but many people still enjoy playing them. Some people might have never owned an older console and might want to pick up games that they've seen, but never played before. What happens when you can't even connect online with that console anymore?

I do care and that is going to require legislation, not to force them to do so but to not sue out of existence anyone who decides to do so if they refuse.

said by Rekrul:

Then it shows you the 20GB+ worth of DLC that you can't get any other way other than buying it online. Is all the DLC for every Xbox 360 and PS3 game still available? Will it be available a decade from now?

Well they could but it's very unlikely that they would. I mean AFAIK the wii shop is the most recent console store to be shut down and even it had things that weren't available otherwise and it wasn't all that big.

The problems there are like you mentioned that even where the physical media hasn't gone away it's being made irrelevant like with games that are pressed but aren't even on the disc requiring you to download the game you bought anyway as an "update" before being able to play it despite you going out of your way to get a physical copy so you didn't have to deal with that crap on your POS 1.5Mbps ADSL connection.

They could definitely at least attempt to accommodate those with little or no connectivity tho.

Like being able to download DLC elsewhere onto a drive and then install it when you get home rather than a net connection being the only option.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 12:03:18 EDT

Rekrul posted :

said by Ostracus:

Some article also touched upon game preservation and modding (not as applicable with consoles) as reasons against the streaming trend. I can understand some of the reasons why they do this (piracy included) but ultimately it's gonna hurt sometime down the line.

Watch this video, and then imagine it applying to a console's entire library;

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· YaK343cY

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 11:49:56 EDT

Ostracus posted : Some article also touched upon game preservation and modding (not as applicable with consoles) as reasons against the streaming trend. I can understand some of the reasons why they do this (piracy included) but ultimately it's gonna hurt sometime down the line.

Re: Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 11:26:14 EDT

Rekrul posted :

said by sims:

You're missing the point.

When a game is download only/streaming, it's not going to be available forever. At some point, the company will decide that it's not worth keeping online and they'll nuke it. Or the licensing deal will run out and they won't have any choice in the matter.

Imagine if the original Xbox had only distributed games digitally. Do you really think Microsoft would still have the entire Xbox game library online for you to browse and buy games from? Every single game ever made for the system? I highly doubt it.

Maybe you don't care about older games, but many people still enjoy playing them. Some people might have never owned an older console and might want to pick up games that they've seen, but never played before. What happens when you can't even connect online with that console anymore?

Of course today's game systems are virtually at that point anyway, even with physical discs. The game companies all release buggy, unfinished games and as soon as you stick the disc in the console the first thing it does is try to go online so it can download the 10GB+ patch. Then it shows you the 20GB+ worth of DLC that you can't get any other way other than buying it online. Is all the DLC for every Xbox 360 and PS3 game still available? Will it be available a decade from now?

Google's Stadia brings more to worry about than just the technical details -

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 10:58:05 EDT

sims posted : Don't forget microsoft is supposedly releasing a version of the xbox one without a disc drive next month.
This is going to be a trend and I really do think at this point that the next generation of consoles will be download/stream only even if they are able to play offline.

You either get broadband or you get left behind.