WRITTEN BY IAN DRANSFIELDownloading games has been
around longer than many of
us think. It’s the same with
streaming: Google’s Stadia isn’t
the first, not by a long shot. Nor
is Sony’s PlayStation Now. It’s not even OnLive,
much as it’d be nice to focus on that particular
missed opportunity. No, it was tech from a
Finnish company called G-cluster; set-top boxes
released around 2010 and cloud-based gaming
around Japan on mobile phones and via IPTV
provider Hikari.
So game streaming isn’t new – why talk about
it now? Because it’s reached the point where a
bunch of the big-hitters are doing it. There are
services out there backed by many millions of
pounds, all clamouring for your hard-earned
cash and telling you this is the future of all the
games. It’s Wireframe’s civic duty, therefore, to
sit down with a selection of these platforms and
answer the two big questions: does it work, and
is it worth it? Spoiler: yes, and maybe.D
FIGHTING THE TIDE
The streaming future is apparently here. Wireframe sits down with some
offerings to find out: is the cloud-based future all it’s cracked up to be?22 / wfmag.ccFighting the tideInterface