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Streaming may be the future of the consoles, but at this point it would be a shot in the foot

News on the next generation of consoles have begun to emerge in recent weeks. Neither of them gave us a clear view of the Sony or Microsoft consoles - instead we had small samples of each. And each sample has totally different foci. On the one hand, we have rumors about the hardware that Sony will use. On the other, rumors about Microsoft's distribution tactics.That said, they give us an image of a future that is a natural step forward in relation to the current generation, without major advances in technology, especially if you have already seen a game running on a next-generation computer. In fact, the most interesting picture has to do with the way we will play many of these games.Specifically, it seems like streaming games running from one central server may be the big next generation component - and if that's the case, we're screwed.First, let's look at the rumors, just to make sure we all speak the same language. On the Xbox side, Brian Crecente told Variety that Microsoft, and developer and game distributor Ubisoft, seemed to see the future of games in streaming.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot went straight to Variety saying, "Over time, I think streaming will become more accessible to more gamers so you will not have to have incredible hardware at home anymore." He went on to say that "we will have another generation of consoles and after that, we will all be streaming."Phil Spencer, Microsoft's chief executive of games, was much more timid - and did not say console days are numbered. Instead, it was in the company's line of thinking that games should be more "agnostic" than hardware. "I do not care that people play Minecraft on an Xbox One, but I care about the possibility that people can play Minecraft on any console or device they have in front of them," he told Variety.Playing, he said, is "less about having a specific device to play a particular game, and more about having your favorite games accessible on any device."
Certainly there are several ways in which Microsoft can make games less hardware dependent, but the most obvious way is by streaming games from a central server - something that Spencer has admitted Microsoft is watching. During the company's E3 conference, he said the company was developing a streaming service to deliver "the quality of console gaming on any device."
That does not necessarily mean that this will be the only route by which Microsoft will deliver games to its consumers, but it definitely indicates that the company sees streaming as part of its future.
It's not clear how Sony sees streaming, though. But unlike Microsoft, the company already has a powerful infrastructure for this purpose. The PS Now service transmits games directly to the consoles of the players and the PS Vue allows to transmit to the TVs.
So the PS5 could take things forward and be a device focused on streaming? This is not at all clear. The strongest rumor we heard about the PS5 is that it will have AMD hardware. That alone is not a surprise. The PS4 and Xbox One are both based on AMD CPUs and GPUs.
According to Forbes, the hardware that AMD developed specifically for the PS5 almost destabilized the company's development cycle for computer GPUs. The new GPU architecture focused on the PS5, known as Navi, will be based on the 7nm manufacturing process. Forbes suggests that it will work in conjunction with a CPU based on current Zen microarchitecture.
It is not yet known if these two components will be a semi-custom SoC or if they will be structured as a traditional PC. That last option seems more likely, simply because it's the way AMD has been working with the consoles for years, and it does it well.
The PCGamesN staff reported that the GPU would be less powerful and would not have the ability to scale Zen. See, Zen CPUs use an AMD technology known as Infinity Fabric, which allows AMD to gather a large number of CPUs and software running on these processors sees the system as a unique and extremely powerful processor.Many assumed that the Navi project would do the same thing with GPUs. But David Wang, vice president of engineering at AMD's Radeon Technologies Group, told PCGamesN this is not the case. The conversation is full of technical terms, but Wang basically laid the blame on game developers, who would have to code their games to see the GPU series as a single GPU.That means the PS5 released in 2020 would not be as powerful as a leading PC assembled in 2018. That's a problem, because next-gen games are already, according to Arthur Gies at Variety, choking on high-end PCs - that is, it takes more CPUs and GPUs to run smoothly.
The consoles are able to get much more performance out of their hardware thanks to the fact that they do not have to deal with multitasking and because developers are able to code everything for specific components rather than designing the games to run on a wide range of hardware. However, it is still a difficult task to ask them to develop games for a device that is not as powerful as a current PC.But if streaming is part of Sony's next console, hardware will not be as important. The device could run some games directly, while the heavier ones would be streamed.And here is where the big problem lies. If streaming is a big part of the next generation of consoles, many gamers will get fucked. Nvidia already transmits heavy gaming on its Shield console, but the experience is ... just adequate. That's because broadcasting a game - especially one with 4K resolution, or HDR, or 60 frames per second more - requires a lot of bThe Nvidia service requires at least 15 Mbps for 720p transmissions at 60 frames per second, and 25 Mbps for 1080p at 60 frames per second. If the console could handle higher resolutions, the required bandwidth would be higher as well. Which means that for you to have a game as beautiful as you have on a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, we would need a 30 to 40 Mbps connection, easily.According to Akamai, the average internet speed in the United States is 18.7 Mbps, which could deliver only 720p at 60 frames per second. In Brazil, the average is even worse: 6.4 Mbps - nor can you enjoy the streaming. In addition, many of the homes do not have higher speeds available - there is no carrier infrastructure.Things get worse when you consider the price of a good internet. If you think paying for Xbox Live Gold or PS Plus is a bad thing, consider that it would be necessary to pay even more money to have a good internet. 
If speeds and prices improve, streaming can become feasible. But that is not likely to happen in the short term. The point for the next generation of consoles is to have better graphics and experiences. If we depend on the internet for this, it will not work very well.


Gizmodo.com