The concept of "cloud gaming" is not new. It has been secretly popular for a while as early as more than ten years ago. Some companies are promoting cloud gaming technology, and some are developing cloud gaming content. All the promotion points are exactly the same as today: using Play high-end games with low-end configuration. However, the infrastructure level in the 3G era at that time was obviously not enough to support this advanced concept.
For players, high latency and slow response are flaws; for manufacturers, high costs and poor profitability are also weaknesses. This embarrassing situation lasted until last year, which was 2019 when 5G technology was launched. Everything started to look different. 5G brings high-speed transmission technology. Cloud GPU rendering capabilities have increased significantly. Virtualization technology improves the operating efficiency of physical machines and edge computing nodes reduce transmission distances.
At present, cloud gaming has returned to the center of the stage with the implementation of 5G. Now all parties in the industry chain have begun to actively promote the implementation of cloud gaming.
The underlying technology is no longer the biggest obstacle
In fact, the underlying technology of 5G cloud gaming has already achieved a phased breakthrough. From the actual experience point of view, the operation is relatively smooth, the delay is very small, and there is no longer a large area of stuttering like in the past, and the experience environment is just an ordinary office network.
Video streaming (low terminal equipment requirements, high bandwidth requirements)
The solution generally developed in the industry is very friendly to user terminals, because all computing power and rendering requirements are completed in the cloud, and the terminal only needs to meet the decoding requirements, and it can be applied to high-end, high-end and low-end models. If your network conditions are good and your machine is a mid- to low-end machine, the best experience for you is video streaming technology. The disadvantage of this technology is that the bandwidth requirements are relatively high.
For game manufacturers, end-to-end cost improvements can already be achieved through a series of technical means, such as improved audio and video capabilities, improved rendering capabilities, edge computing, etc. In addition, the same server resources can also reduce overall costs by rationally allocating computing power. For example, if you make social applications and games at the same time, when you are not playing games during the day, they will be allocated to other places, and when you start playing games at night, they will be shipped back. This can achieve the highest comprehensive utilization rate and the marginal cost for everyone. will be reduced accordingly.
This is the software technology aspect. As for hardware, that is, infrastructure, progress is also very rapid.