In the eyes of the industry, the business model of this type of game is still in doubt.
Editor’s note: This article is from Netease Technology, author LeBron.
(Original title: Google’s Stadia takes aim at $130bn video game market)
On November 20th, according to foreign media reports, Google officially launched the cloud game service Stadia in 14 countries on Tuesday, and the sword refers to the $13 billion video game market. However, in the eyes of the industry, the business model of this type of game is still in doubt.
The Stadia service has a total of 22 start-up games, including popular games such as Tomb Raider, Wilderness, and Destiny. The Google Stadia Pro subscription service costs $9.99 a month. Players can play games on Stadia via a smartphone, tablet, computer or TV.
Through the large data centers of the search giant, Stadia will provide players with a high-speed, quality-quality gaming console experience that covers everything from the living room to the smartphone.
Unlike launching a game console, Google’s platform offers a huge scale. Nintendo’s Switch sold 1.5 million units on its first weekend in 2017, while Google said it will have hundreds of millions of potential users in North America and Western Europe from day one. “We are very confident that we have access to the widest audience,” said Stadia head Phil Harrison.
For developers such as Ubisoft, the platform offers an attractive outlook. Ubisoft’s two games, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Just Dance 2020, are among the first games in Stadia.
Chris Early, senior vice president of partnership and revenue at Ubisoft, said, “Providing services through ‘launch’ streaming means you don’t have to face a slowUser adaptation period. We are excited to think that tens of millions of people can go online.
Google’s online cloud gaming service will be earlier than Microsoft. Many game industry people have predicted that Amazon will enter the market with the advantages of AWS cloud computing services and Twitch. Twitch allows players to share their own gaming experience. But so far, there is almost no indication that Amazon is about to launch a game service.
Analysts say that in order to win the support of consumers and developers, Google and Microsoft need to fight a costly and protracted war.
Because of the huge cloud computing business, the two companies have unmatched capabilities in launching their own cloud games, but it is unclear whether consumers are getting involved for the first time in ten years before the two pioneers OnLive and Gaikai This product is even more needed.
In August, in a game event held in Germany, people played “Doom” on the Google Stadia booth.
OnLive’s former engineering director, Bruce Grove, said that unlike start-ups that were eventually acquired by Sony, Google and Microsoft had “nearly unlimited funds.” Grove said, “If you have so much money, you can at least cover up the business model for a period of time – it may take a long time to get results.”
Silicon executives in Silicon Valley admit that they will have to fight a long time. Harrison said, “Google is doing a very long-term investment.”
Phil Spencer, director of Microsoft’s gaming business, said, “One of the benefits of working inside Microsoft is that it allows us to look at technology development in the longer term. We will make short-term It may not be conducive to the decision of this quarter’s performance. But we have a long-term plan for the direction of this business.”
IHS Screen Digest game analyst Piers Harding-Rolls said that Google is currently “a huge disadvantage” compared to Microsoft and Sony, which has its own game streaming service, PlayStation Now. .
“They have no content, and there is no ready-made (game console) business to rely on.” He said, “game console companies are in a very favorable position during this transition period because they can cater to a variety of different audiences.” /p>
Although Google promises to launch at least a dozen before the end of the yearThe game, but Microsoft announced last week that its xCloud project will launch more than 50 games when it comes to Android phones and Windows 10 PCs next year.
Each Azure data center supporting xCloud is equipped with hardware very similar to the Microsoft Xbox One game console. This means that any of the thousands of games released on the Xbox can be easily accessed via xCloud.
“Our cloud platform is based on Xbox, meaning that (game developers) don’t need to re-develop games.” Spencer said, “When we think about how this game will evolve, we focus on what we think is critical. Three factors: game content, the player community, and the global cloud infrastructure. The next generation of game contenders must be world-class in all three respects.”
Although Google operates one of the world’s largest gaming markets through its Android app store, mobile gaming is very different from the gaming console world.
Google is trying to turn the mobile end of the game into an advantage, offering a new experience that goes beyond the traditional console experience – such as clicking on a YouTube video to enter the game. For example, a group of four friends playing Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint will be able to see real-time game videos of their respective perspectives. “This is what we can’t do on the game console today.” Earley said.
But Stadia requires a high-speed broadband connection (up to 35 mbps) to deliver full-resolution Ultra HD 4K games. Earley said that the cost of network services for players is a potential problem, especially for players with limited downloads.
This is just one of many game publishers’ concerns about services like Stadia and xCloud. Ernst & Young’s (EY) recent survey of more than 200 video game industry executives found that more than two-thirds believe that cloud games will become the “mainstream form” of games five years later, but many also say They expect their development and infrastructure costs to rise accordingly.
In addition, there are uncertainties in the business model of cloud games. Microsoft has not yet determined the price of xCloud, but said it is willing to try a variety of models, such as one-time purchases and subscriptions, or even sponsored by advertising.
Nicholas Lovell, game director at developer Electric Square, points out that it makes it difficult for game developers to estimate how they will get rewards from cloud games, especially before large-scale testing at Stadia or xCloud. .
He said, “You need these third-party developers to bet on this new platform. I don’t know if anyone is going to do this.” According to IHS Markit, sales of video games and services last year were $130 billion.
Spencer believes that xCloud will help developers to make money in markets where game consoles such as India have never taken off sooner or later.
He said, “In these (new) markets, revenue per user may vary, but in these markets, developers have not yet made any money, so this is a kind of their existing business. Supplement.”
Since casual games on smartphones have been the primary means of expanding the audience in the gaming industry, simply selling games to existing console players is not enough to sustain growth.
“Now, there are 200 million to 250 million game console players around the world, we are divided by us, Sony and Nintendo. This number is actually not growing at present.” Spencer said, “Obviously, you can’t make all of today. The 2.5 billion people who play games have game consoles… all you need to do is see what devices people already have.”