Game streaming was the most exciting thing at E3 2018
Freeing games from hardware could vastly increase access
There were plenty of great announcements at E3 2018. Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us 2, in particular, looked incredible; Xbox’s expansion of its first-party studios could generate some great games in the years to come; and talk of a new generation of consoles is enough to make any gamer excited. But the announcements that could have the biggest impact on the industry, by increasing the number of gamers and changing how people play, were those about game streaming.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot kicked off the conversation by stating that the next generation of consoles will be the last before people start streaming all of their games. Days later, EA and Microsoft made direct reference to their streaming plans.
During EA’s press conference, CEO Andrew Wilson unveiled a new Premier tier of its Origin Access subscription service, which will give players access to even more games, including some major new-release titles. He then transitioned to game streaming, informing the crowd of industry figures, journalists, and fans that the company was working on a cloud-based service which wasn’t yet ready for public release, but it was available for testing during the convention. Ken Moss, EA’s technology chief, told CNET that “[t]he combination of streaming and subscriptions is really going to change the way games are consumed.”
The next day, Microsoft had similar announcements. Ashley Speicher, the executive in charge of Xbox Game Pass, announced that the company would be expanding the subscription service to include some new-release titles later in 2018, a FastStart option to speed up download, and was working on a subscription service.
Sony did not mention Playstation Now, its game streaming service, at its press conference, choosing instead to focus on some of its key titles, but while EA and Microsoft are still working on theirs, Sony’s offering already gives subscribers access to a library of over 650 PS2, PS3, and PS4 titles which can be played on PS4 or PC. Recent reports also suggest Sony will be adding a download option for people without a reliable internet connection.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see even more companies jump into the cloud-gaming fight in the future, but there’s one thing that can be assured: the shift from needing powerful hardware — be it a console or gaming PC — to play the newest AAA titles to being able to play on nearly any device with a good enough internet connection could be revolutionary in expanding the number of people who play video games.
Just as mobile devices made it easier for people to play games, so too could game streaming massively expand the number of people who play, especially if the cost of the subscription isn’t prohibitive.
Which company will lead in this new market remains to be seen. Sony is arguably in the lead, given it’s the only company with an active streaming service. Its strong line-up of first-party studios and games also gives it an advantage, along with its long-term relationships with third-party developers. And the general preference for Playstation over Xbox that exists outside North America shouldn’t be underestimated.
However, as Matthew Handrahan, editor-in-chief of GamesIndustry.biz, recently argued, game streaming gives Xbox an opportunity to overtake Sony because it can leverage resources from the rest of Microsoft to build a superior streaming service. The expansion of its own first-party studios could also come in handy, as exclusive first-party titles will likely be the differentiators in game streaming, similar to how Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and other video streaming services rely on their exclusives to attract subscribers. If his prediction comes to pass, Handrahan believes that, in a few years, Microsoft could be the Netflix of gaming, while Sony may look more like HBO.
EA is clearly trying to build partnerships to expand beyond being a developer and publisher to being a platform in its own right — it recently added Warner Bros’ games to Origin Access — while Steam, the dominant digital distributor of PC games, recently launched Steam Link to allow full PC games to be streamed on mobile devices — it still requires a computer that can run the game, at least for now.
Game streaming won’t upend the industry in the matter of a few years. There’s still at least one more generation of consoles to come, and internet connections may need to get better before it becomes a realistic option for many people who may be interested in cloud-gaming services. However, there will be a greater focus on streaming in the coming years as major companies try to improve their offerings to take an early lead in what could be a much larger gaming market in the future, enabled by streaming.
