What is a “cloud game”?
To play a conventional game, purchase software and play the game on a
stationary game machine (hereinafter referred to as hardware) or a PC.
On the other hand, cloud gaming is a mechanism in which all game execution is performed on the server.
Then, the video created on the server is
received by streaming to the terminal at hand and displayed on the terminal at hand.
high-quality games can be played without the need for high performance like conventional game machines.
As a result, it
is possible to reduce distribution costs, etc., which leads to lower price of the game itself and improvement of quality, and it
is not necessary to purchase new hardware, so new users can be expected to enter.
Additional functions and bug fixes will be available immediately by updating the server side.
It was a fantasy product until a while ago, but with the progress of technology, the above technology is beginning to be put into practical use.
We have announced a long-standing rivalry between Microsoft and SONY for cloud games.
Notable among Microsoft’s announcements is “xCloud”
For some time,
Nvidia and Shadow, which have been providing services, have adopted the remote server method,
while SONY uses the hardware at home as a server and uses the line at home.
However, “xCloud” will be adopted for both.
You can play from the hardware installed at home or from Azure data centers scattered around the world.
Regarding this, the details such as the official release time are still unknown, but
it was said that it is currently developing so that it can be played back to “Galaxy S7”, but it is
expected that it will be possible to play even older models. It was that.
There are also disadvantages
There is no difference in the advantage of being able to play anywhere, but
cloud gaming depends on the line speed.
Although the specifications of the main unit are not required
so much, the reception is performed by the streaming method, so if the line speed is slow,
operation lag will occur, which will affect the game play.
Because the line speed technology is also developing
, the day may come when line speed issues will be improved in the near future.
Forecast of domestic cloud gaming market
Gz Brain, which publishes the game information magazine “Famitsu”
, announced the results of a survey on the size of the game market.
Cloud game transition table(Source: Famitsu Game White Paper 2019)
The domestic game market in 2018 reached a record high of 1,067.4 billion yen, of which the
cloud game market was 1.1 billion yen (about 0.07%)
, but in 2020 it was 2.86 billion yen (about 2.6 times in 2018 ) 22 It is said that it
will rapidly expand to 12.59 billion yen (about 11.4 times) in the year, so we will keep an eye on the cloud game market in the future.