PC Games On Demand?

[Junaid Alam]

PC Games On Demand?

U.K.-based t5 labs is working on plans to deliver a streaming service that will make PC games playable via television sets.

It is developing software that will allow consumers to play computer games on an on-demand basis with a per-game fee or as part of a subscription package.

Company CEO Graham Clemie said the setup is design to appeal to "those gamers who are less hardcore, and maybe prefer the comfort of sitting in their living room to play games, who are fed up with having to buy all the different games consoles, and upgrade all the time, and go out and buy the games."

He said it was unlikely consumers would put up with a living room keyboard and mouse setup and said a standardized game controller would likely have to be developed in conjunction with the software.

Few other details, such as estimated time frame and available titles, have been made public.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=30469]

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[Katana314]

I dunno. Not nearly as much "ZANG" as seeing the Nintendo Wii in action. If I never played games and was looking for a console, the Wii would be it as opposed to this thing.

 

[bonaparte]

From the article it looks like they plan to encode the output from a game and stream it to the set top box as live video. This could work for slower paced titles such as many casual games and turn based rpgs or strategy games.

Surely anything requiring fast reactions/movement (FPS, racing, action/adventure) would be unplayable due to the lag introduced by video encoding and time it takes for button presses to return to the game server?

It doesn't sound very scalable either. They'll need the equivalent of a gaming pc cpu and graphics chip for each game session.

I'll believe it when I see it in action.