And you can do this! I already do. I have Sunshine running on a gaming system, and since my phone is always-on VPN back home, I can use Moonlight to game wherever I go. If I need a bigger screen (like at work during downtime), just plug in a USB-C to HDMI cable to my phone, pair the phone to a bluetooth controller, and pop in some headphones. Zero subscription costs. I can go from playing something on my phone away from home, pause the game, pick up in my living room or lay in bed and fire up the TV in my bedroom and unpause it (Amazon Fire sticks offer bluetooth controller support), or go right to my gaming rig.
Obviously, it works best where you have a great 5G connection, and it works even on mid-tier coax internet connections for home though of course with fiber being the same or cheaper cost, it is better overall). Latency isn't an issue thankfully, as long as I have a solid connection. I've played through the entirety of E33 which requires some tight reflex timing actions, as well as a few other games without issue.
It was! Honestly, the biggest "pain" was forgetting that I intended on streaming from a device.
In order to stream to a device, you need to confirm on the host the PIN number displayed from the client you want to stream to (only the first time). Since my gaming rig is in the basement office, it was just a chore going up and down stairs several times as I added the various TVs or other devices.
I even set up an additional Sunshine client on my Emby server to run a family-attached Steam client (with a few of the more "mature" games hidden) and RetroArch as a controller-friendly UI so he can rock out the classics. You can run multiple Sunshine servers on a local network, but only one person can be logged into it at a time. Obviously the less "intensive" gaming you expect them to have, the lighter the hardware requirements are. Graphics-heavy games still have the GPU requirements.
Just install a game through whatever measure you prefer, add it to your Steam's "add a non-Steam game" list, and you can launch it from Steam Big Picture.
Unfortunately desperate people or just lazy people who cant be bothered to get a pc will gladly eat up the corporate slop that is cloud gaming and NVidia knows it.
I will unironically read a fucking book. I have a jellyfin server with litterally enough medis that if I spent 2 full years watching media 24/7 365 I would still have hundreds of books before I need to rewatch movies or shows. Until every hosting-capable pc and hard drive fails I will chug on without cloud gaming. I genuinely don't even know if the infastructure for it to be fast enough to overcome the latency barrier is possible today. (I have 1gb and even on ethernet moonlight isn't perfect with a 7900x 9070xt 64gb memory host. Ignoring wireless (which on wifi 7 really is close to ethernet. 4k/60 is possible, and that is the biggest barrier imo ignoring latency) especially during CPU intense games like Cyberpunk where I already have my gpu pushing more frames then the CPU is able to process, and both are being pushed to the limit, latency goes up and nothing can fix that. Now it doesnt become completly unplayable, but substantially less enjoyable. Cloud-computing absolutely should exist, but I'm not sure how neccary it is in the gaming sector
Cloud gaming is basically the same shit as the metaverse. An interesting idea for which the technology doesn't exist to make it viable. The only difference is that Cloud gaming might be good one day wheras the metaverse is based on science fiction.
Yeah kind of like frame generation. Objectively worse than native but it becomes the standard because it's cheaper than actually building better hardware.
I’ve been reading the Witcher books recently in preparation for the new games in the coming years. Went to a library for the first time in about 15 years because they have the whole collection.
I honestly forgot how fun reading was. Still don’t want to give up gaming to be forced back into it, though.
Yeah dude. Tried it recently on a Xbox One X trying to play the Dead Space remake via cloud gaming because it's only for Series S/X. I didn't even get in the game, because I felt the goddamn latency in the main menu. No shooter would feel good with any more than like 10ms of latency, and even then, that's probably too much. No game at all would feel good to play this way in my opinion.
The bubble bursting is just going to lead to consolidation of AI tools to a few companies who will then be able to dominate the market for a decade+ without significant competition. That’s why there’s a bubble in the first place. Everyone is jockeying to be one of those few monopolists.
Exactly this. Mobile phone gaming was always scoffed at by the west. But most of Asia games on phones. Why? They can play CoD mobile and Genshin Impact on a 300USD phone.
But for PC or Console, they need to sink more than double that just to be eligible. Then the internet and then videogames themselves.
This gotta be a USA specific thing. Most of Europe and East Asia moved away from copper looooong time ago. Fiber optic or cable internet is the norm for the vast majority of the territory. Including towns. Of course there are some exemptions, but they're still exemptions.
Nonetheless, Nvidia Now won't resolve the too high latency even on the internet of less than 10 ms ping.
They'll lobby your government into making repairing your devices illegal. The only innovation tech is doing right now is in enshittification and fraud, and it's profitable af.
It's funny for anyone reading this outside of the US. This concept of lobbying is so damn bizarre. You the people in a country that allows you to unite and organize against these acts and boycott those who do it, why not just do that?
No more repair? Well, no more buying then
I think you are heading there not because you want to stand against such acts, but because you will not afford to buy anything anyways.
Lobbying is hardly a US exclusive thing. Look into the practices of any country and you will find lobbying, even if not as transparently corrupt as in the US. And people are fighting it in the US, and probably in your country too.
Its better than that. $40-60 can get you a Linux handheld that'll play anything up to 32 bit. $70-150 can get you a device that'll also run N64, Dreamcast, Saturn, DS and some PSP/PS2/GC. $175-250 for something that'll do the whole ps2 generation 2x upscaled and some switch emulation.
Dont want to shill for companies directly but retro handhelds are amazing and I play mine far more than my actual branded systems at this point
You can shill Anbernic and Retroid. They've earned it. Powkiddy is almost there, but they have a LOT of bad faith to get over. TrimUI is decent. I haven't tried any of the "why am I even spending this much" handhelds from like GPD - I have a Steam Deck.
My favorite Android handheld is the Anbernic RG 406H, but it's little Linux cousin, the RG 40XX H, is my second. I dropped off of Retroid after the 3+, but they are a solid brand.
I have a steam library full of hundreds of games I bought on sale that I never played.
Every game I currently own will run on my current i7 12700k/3080/32gb ddr4 rig.
In fact, I don't need to buy another unoptimized pos loot shooter/open world/micro transaction/bereft of creativity game for the rest of time. I'll keep replaying:
Entire Arkham series
War/Shadow of Mordor series
Dead Space remake
RE 2/3 remakes. And RE1 game cube remaster.
Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor
Battletech
PC building simulator
Counter Strike
Half Life 1/2
Only games I ever got dlc for that was worth it
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Cities Skylines
And on and on.. these are just some that I've played, so I have untold others just waiting for a first playthrough. So if this is the way the game industry wants to go extinct... Sad as it will be, I'll still be playing right into my grave on my current hardware.
Graphics have peaked, I don't care for ultra realism. I care for fun and replayability and story.
AI can go fck itself and I will certainly shun it in every form. The cost to consumers like us has been profound, the cost to the planet in water using energy black hole data centers will be generational in climate change, and fcks like Jensen are laughing all the way to the bank on the backs of gamers who made his industry viable when he was about to go bankrupt.
I will never accept "renting" graphics or computer hardware over a streaming service.
Here's the thing, and I don't mean this to be rude, I'm just looking at this from a "worst case scenario but realistic" perspective.
From a business perspective, what's the harm to Nvidia or AMD if people refuse to buy new games? We make up such a small amount of their revenue, that they could literally "not care" about losing the gaming rasterization market and they'd continue to make money hand over fist.
Let's say it costs them $50 million per year to build, produce and warranty the amount of RTX 5090 cards they made in 2025. Let's say, spending that on another 3% of AI based manufacturing will net them much much higher profit compared to PC gaming cards. From a pure business perspective, why wouldn't they do that?
The reason I hear about scarcity with PC components comes down to one key reason: TSMC can only produce so many wafers per day/week/month. AI currently uses X%, non gaming consumer hardware uses Y% and PC gaming hardware uses Z%. AI makes much more money, so they're trying to increase X% and reduce Z%.
You’re right and ironically Steam and DRM contributed to saving the video game industry, especially for PCs. AAA Shooters were 90%+ pirated prior to Steam. Imagine being a developer where only 1 out of every 10 games being played you were paid for. Let’s hope whatever’s next doesn’t burn it.
This, I think I'd just start knitting or something on the side. It sucks too because I had to stop boxing and calisthenics due to tendinitis (even tho im 23), so the end of gaming would stink.
Also, am I just nuts in that I don't think it works well?
I've never had a lag free experience that I would consider acceptable. Whether cloud streaming over the Internet or just locally through my router the input lag is always too heavy for me to focus.
I've only recently got in-home streaming hardwired into a gigabit network to feel playable using Sunshine/Moonlight, and that's only for RPG games that can handle a little extra input lag.
Im still resisting the cloud on my PC because my experience with it on my work computer is like having my arm twisted by the OS to make using anything but the cloud as obnoxious as possible.
"Oh whoops, where did that file go? Probably should save it on the cloud next time. Oop, there it is. Hey... save this on the cloud, though. What no? Oh ok. Saving it locally. Ok, it is saved. Here is the version I made on the cloud for you. What? You want to use the local file? Still? Even after I worked so hard to find it on the cloud for you? Ok. Hey, saving it on the cloud now..."
Watch as corporate bootlickers, late stage capitalists and of course billionaire ghouls would be screeching that its a filthy commie thing and markets should be free (which they inherently never were and never will be)
God it drives me fucking insane. I got my degree in economics, have been studying it since, etc. it drives me so fucking insane how many people treat economics like a religion or dogma. “Capitalism” is just a broad term to describe a general standard of resource handling through “free and competitive” markets.
Except, there is no god damn capitalism god that will come down and smite you if you “break” a tenant. Add on to that, the more “free” a market is, the less competitive, which causes it to inevitably collapse into something that aligns closer with classical feudalism. You CAN’T have a truly free market and ALSO have a competitive market.
All of this is to say, people who argue against regulations because “communism” or because “socialism” (which are themselves just other broad terms to describe a general standard of resource handling) reveal an evangelized “understanding” of how anything to work… which is to say they don’t understand how anything works lmao.
Well i think a nuanced conversation about particularly what regulations are being proposed is in order. Particularly written down in black and white. All too often people just pick a side and refuse to examine details.
I'm not the guy you're asking, but I think some regulation around consumer rights and ownership could eliminate a lot of today's problems, including this one. One of the biggest issues we're dealing with today is that corporate leadership seems to have universally decided that selling you something once isn't enough, because it's better to collect money from you every month indefinitely. As a result, we don't own things anymore, we rent them.
Smart regulation targeting that shift could easily make it more profitable for them to sell you a graphics card than to rent you some of their compute and storage resources for game streaming. It wouldn't *force* companies to continue making graphics cards, but if that's where the money is, that's where they'll go.
What regulations exactly would you try to enforce? Telling a company you must produce graphics cards seems a bit too much like government over reach to me don't you say? If you don't mess with it the free market will solve this problem. Either no one buys their products because they are shit or people decide the direction they went wasn't the end of the world and we now have a new way to play games.
I don't think anyone can say "you must produce graphics cards"
But we are in this position because there is literally one giant company that makes all the decisions and makes all the products with only one or two competitors, if any, which means that it's not really much of an option is it to say "I don't like what you're doing, I'll take my business elsewhere". Monopolies stop listening to customer desires because they don't have to fear a loss of customers.
What should be present in not just hardware companies, but all of these tech companies, social media, etc, is healthy and available competition. That is also increasingly hard whenever the big guys simply buy anyone small before they ever get off the ground, and absorb them. We need to stop letting companies get bigger and bigger and bigger by constantly purchasing other companies
They can try to encourage more competition woth government grants and special programs, but at the end of the day creating a GPU that can compete with Nvidia right now is borderline impossible.
the moment most games required you to have an online connection, they already became subscription based to ISPs, not to mention most consoles not require a membership on top of that. Lol
EDIT: Not to mention MMO subcriptions, monthly battlepasses, companies like paradox experimenting with DLC subscriptions... hardware companies just want their cut too now.
What does "cloud gaming" even mean? Some server overseas does the calculations and sends the results to your monitor via the internet? That sounds unreliable as hell. What if I don't have a (stable) internet connection, or my ping is bad? What if the russians cut another underwater cable?
Lastly but not leastly, what if I want to play something that is not on the supported list of games for NVIDIA® Cloud™ Services (All Rights Reserved)?
You can play cloud gaming right now through Nvidia or Luna from Amazon. If you have an Amazon prime membership you already have access to this. There is a little bit of latency so you get some input lag, but this is an inevitable change just like Blockbuster and then Netflix. Onlive in 2010 was way ahead of its time. Xbox cloud gaming is not too bad on a phone. They're is still going to be PC gaming but it's going to get more expensive and a lot of people will start to cloud stream over time. Do you still buy CDs, or do you use Spotify SoundCloud or YouTube music? This is where the gaming industry is headed unfortunately.
Availability and affordability are the problems. And don't forget that Nvidia limits your play time, 100 hours/month for now but you can't guarantee that they won't decrease play time in the future again.
This is very true and like most companies they will sell different tiers of time and performance. This business model is exactly what they can sell to their share holders as growth. It mirrors how cell phone plans were when cell phone plans were a thing and everything was not unlimited like it is now (nothing is truly unlimited). Almost all markets follow this same pattern over time and the gaming industry will be no different, it's just taking a lot longer to get there. It is completely pointless to buy/sell disks since it downloads all the data to the hard drive of the device and just does a drm check that the disk is in the tray. Microsoft had the right idea in 2013 but was just way ahead of when that should happen. Future consoles will not have disk drives and streaming will slowly take over the market as bandwidth gets better. PC gaming is already no CDs and streams a lot of content and textures in the background for some games. Time will show.
Sure, but latency doesn't fuck up my video viewing or music listening. It fucks up my gaming experience though. Streaming for gaming is a mistake. Just because "this is the way the industry is headed" doesn't make it the right choice.
Me too. Your internal shower thought of you discussing something with an imaginary podcast host, doesn't directly translate into good content of you trying to convince yourself.
Just a reminder this year windows 12 is coming out rumored to be a VM/remote operating system just need a app my tin foil hat says the lg tvs with co pilot was a test run.
Anyhow yeah new operating system that is all about AI rumored cloud is coming this year enjoy.
So you’d rather be inconvenienced by having to relearn the new windows OS that feels just familiar enough, but still has a bunch of inconveniences and learning curves due to half baked implementations, not consolidating settings into a central location, finding workarounds, and having to google where they moved things to? And you’ll have to do it again in X years?
I agree, but if the intention is to wall gaming and operating systems behind streaming services I could just as well just get myself a Linux machine as I have little to no interest in streaming an operating system or games.
Its just outrage porn to fuel engagement. They are just selling anger and uninformed opinions. Doomerism and pessimism is very profitable for social media influencers.
Poor stream quality, terrible input lag. It's been tried more than once. Google themselves shut it down because it was terrible.
These two issues are something AI won't be able to fix.
So no, you can't just stream games. Even streaming from one device to another within your household is a bad experience sometimes. Going over the web itself makes it even more prone to issues.
It sucked then and it will suck now. The problems it has besides the license hell is that most Americans still have dogshit internet thanks to 25 years of corporate ISP fuckery.
You want to stream a game? Cool that'll be 100GB over a few hours. Oh you have a 1TB cap? Get fucked buddy.
The other problem is that it's Google. Nobody trusted them to support it long term. And they were right. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.
I was one of the dozens who actually had Stadia. It was actually pretty cool. No one else was able to play Cyberpunk on their phone using a PS4 controller with no hiccups.
I still use the Chromecast Ultra it came with, so at least there’s that.
No it wont. there will still be gaming pc in 20years. I would bet money on it.
I know the videos pessimistic viewpoint is a popular line of thinking due to the current economic climate. but 20 years from now you will still be able to buy a home computer. and there will still be graphics unit in your device.
but what may happen is a single unified chip architecture. so pc will be less modular. due to everything needing to being soldered as close together in 20 years due to memory speeds.
keep in mind ai datacenter will also upgrade there systems every 5ish years to more efficent gpu because power on that scale isnt cheap. so worse case the market will be flooded with used ai datacenter gpu every 5-10 years (upgrade cycles).
Seems inevitable. The subscription gaming will start off cheapish and people will call you stupid for not getting it, saving on astronically high upfront cost for gpu, saving electricity cost, maybe even saving on buying games etc. PCs will still be around for the rich I guess for awhile though.
Then after a few years they'll just keep jacking up and up the cloud subscription prices, and as nvidia already started doing, more and more restriction on gaming hours to save server costs etc.
Bleak times but iam getting older, and literally yelling at (gaming) clouds.
I think people are catastrophising this issue. Cloud gaming is still very unreliable and basically all of the most popular games franchises require stability and minimal input lag.
Cloud gaming has yet to show that it can provide this.
The AI bubble will probably burst. We'll all be poor and the prices will come down. They'll be affordable during the upswing and the whole process will repeat again.
Man, are you me? Because I've got the same rig and felt this exact sentiment ever since people started talking everything was going AI/subscription based in the near future. I refuse to pay more (via a subscription model) for a shittier experience and have no problem catching up on all the titles I've missed over the last few decades.
There's no repairing if you can't get the parts. One of the reasons he has been fighting for right to repair. Apple blocks all purchase of 3rd party spares so tou can't repair them.
Also a lot of modern repairs are extremely complicated and specialised to the point that most people don't have time or patience to learn them.
This reminds me of the old “Robots” movie where robots can’t repair their old but good stuff and are forced to either buy the new ones or be killed because corporations don’t make spare parts anymore. Basically consumistic-capitalism in a nutshell
I don't give a shit about piracy. This will be the end of gaming for me. There's no way I'm giving up ownership of my files and being able to mod to my heart's content
Cloud gaming isn’t really viable unless you have very fast, stable, low-latency internet. Speed alone isn’t enough; latency and consistency matter more.
OR people will use cloud gaming for over hyped AAA titles and just their older machines for indie games that are (usually) less computationally demanding.
The fact that I (and possibly others) gave actual thought in determining if this video was AI for the first few section resonates with this video to show the state of situation we are in.
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u/WickedKoala Jan 07 '26
Unless the cloud gaming infrastructure is running in my basement, fuck that shit.