Shuhei Yoshida, the former head of Sony Entertainment, has decried the outsized impact of game subscription services, essentially saying that they had the potential to stifle innovation and put too much emphasis on AAA and first-party games and make it even more difficult for indie developers to break into the scene. In an interview with Game Developer, Yoshida shared his concerns about the rise of subscription services, adding that Sony's approach was less harmful than Xbox Game Pass, specifically because Sony wasn't trying to launch AAA titles straight to the subscription model like Xbox is.

Yoshida's implication is that Sony's model of allowing games to have a traditional release before going to PlayStation Plus is likely a healthier approach than the day-one AAA launches that became popular on Xbox Game Pass. His concerns boil down to the aforementioned issues with innovation, saying that "what [type] of games can be created will be dictated by the owner of the subscription services," and adding that "the big companies dictate what games can be created, I don't think that will advance the industry," however he also takes issue with the financial side of things, implying that, if gamers have day-one access to games on subscription services, they won't want to pay up-front for games. This last point has implications for innovation as much as his former thought, because if game developers depend on subscription services for launches, it might make them more averse to trying new things. These comments seem all the more relevant in a modern gaming landscape, where indie developers seem to be largely responsible for pushing the envelope. You simply need to look at the popularity of games like Hades, Terraria, or the roguelike and survival-craft genre in general for evidence of such.

Game streaming hardware brand Streamplify showcased its latest gear at the 2023 Computex. The booth begins with an example setup of a typical stream rig, with a height adjustable desktop, two Streamplify Glow Light 14 units, and a Mount Arm, which can hold onto a Streamplify Mic Pro. This mic features Ø16 mm condenser capsules, and upgraded 24-bit/192 kHz digital sampling rate.

Right behind the monitors are Streamplify's new generation >20 dB Acoustic Panels. The booth also featured Streamplify's new generation Cam Pro. The original Cam is full HD, and uses a manual telescopic concealment mechanism. With the new Cam Pro, you just turn a silver shroud to cover the camera lens and its in-built mic. The biggest feature upgrade is the resolution, as the Cam Pro is capable of 4K @ 30 FPS or 1080p @ 60 FPS. Streamplify is planning to sell this at just $99.99 a pop. The company also showed us their upcoming HDMI-based video capture card that the company claims will be an affordable solution for beginners. Lastly, there's a next-generation Hub Ctrl product with OLED screen buttons.

Samsung Electronics announced exciting new ways for gamers to experience game streaming with the addition of new partners and the introduction of game streaming to select 2021 Samsung TV models and 4K games, further delivering on its promise of bringing the future of gaming to consumers across the globe.

Antstream Arcade is the world's largest cloud gaming service that provides players access to over 1,500 iconic games and weekly new multiplayer challenges and tournaments. Select Samsung TV owners will soon be able to battle their friends and the global community at the best games from the 80s, 90s and 00s, from Pac-Man to Mortal Kombat and Metal Slug.

Game streaming services, such as GeForce Now, Stadia and Amazon's Luna, haven't been the roaring success the companies behind them had hoped for. One of the pitfalls, that NVIDIA quickly found out, was that the game publishers weren't overly keen on gamers being able to play games they already owned on multiple systems, even if it wasn't on more than one system at once. Multiple services have already come and gone over the years and now it's time for Google to bid farewell to its Stadia service. In its blog post, Google didn't state the exact reasoning behind shutting down the service, beyond it not gaining the kind of traction the company had hoped for.

The good news here is that Google will be refunding all of its Stadia customers, regardless if it's someone that has bought hardware through the Google Store, or bought games or even add-on content for games through the Stadia Store. Google will be refunding all of its customers by the 18th of January 2023 and those using Stadia will continue to have access to all of their content until that date. Google expects its Stadia technology to be used for other services, or potentially be made available to third parties. As to the team behind Stadia, many will apparently carry on working for other departments at Google.

Microsoft is reportedly planning to release a "direct browser-based solution" to bring their Xbox Game Pass xCloud streaming service to iOS and iPadOS devices targeting a 2021 launch according to sources familiar with the matter. Microsoft has faced numerous issues with bringing the service to Apple devices due to App Store policies requiring each game to be uploaded as a separate application for review. Microsoft has previously stated that this solution is unacceptable and they would be investigating other options, they seem to have concluded that a web app would be the best route forwards. This approach is very similar to Amazon's Luna game streaming service which will also utilize a web app for access on Apple devices.

NVIDIA GeForce Now is a game streaming service which allows gamers to stream owned games from Steam, Epic Games Store, and Origin remotely from NVIDIA servers to a variety of devices. NVIDIA has today announced that GeForce NOW will be coming to ChromeOS as a beta, this will add to the list of supported platforms which already include Android, NVIDIA Shield, Windows, and macOS. This beta will unlock new gaming opportunities for students with Chromebooks who would otherwise be unable to game.

NVIDIA has also announced intentions to bring Ansel and Steam Game Sync support to the service in the coming weeks. Ansel is a powerful in-game camera tool that lets gamers to capture professional-grade screenshots in supported games such as The Witcher 3 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. GeForce NOW Founders membership is available for 4.99 USD a month and supports over 650 games including over 70 free to play titles.

GeForce NOW has already been enjoyed by millions of gamers. As we approach the end of our trial period, we're working to build a robust catalog of PC games with full support from the development community. This includes a new opt-in process for developers and publishers to offer their games on GeForce NOW. Response has been strong with over 200 publishers committing to streaming on the service.

GeForce NOW is an extension of the PC ecosystem. There is no cost for developers — games just run without difficult porting requirements — helping them reach millions of players who don't have game-ready PCs. Going forward, only the games that are opted in will be available on the service, providing confidence in the GeForce NOW game library. Yet some publishers are still figuring out their cloud strategies. Those that haven't opted in as of May 31 will be removed.

We knew this was coming, especially after Google's teaser from earlier this month. Project Stream was a proof-of-concept in collaboration with Ubisoft, to see whether AAA gaming was possible over the internet. Things were smooth most of the time in our own experience, but there remained questions over how the concept would translate over to a finished product, especially with infrastructure challenges on the client side of things. Google's keynote at GDC just wrapped up, and the main focus was Stadia- the now named cloud gaming service borne out of Project Stream.

Stadia is built with instant access in mind. An example demo came in the form of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which was used in the public test before. It is integrated with partner YouTube channels such that a trailer for a supported game would have an option to play said game, which would then launch immediately. Stadia is built with support from a wide partner network including AMD, Unity, id Software, and more, with details seen past the break.

We saw a glimpse of this at the NVIDIA suite during CES 2019, with a beta version coming out shortly after. NVIDIA and OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) have since brought out the full release of a new OBS Studio, version 23.0.1, that adds improved support for NVIDIA GeForce cards. In particular, their latest and greatest RTX lineup, including the new desktop RTX 2060 as well as the mobile and Max-Q variants, will see an FPS impact drop by as much as 66% according to NVIDIA's internal testing. Some example results are seen below, with games such as Fortnite, PUBG, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 - Blackout, and Apex Legends seeing a frame rate boost by up to 48% compared to x264 Fast, and 27% compared to x264 Very Fast.

Given this is a result of NVENC, NVIDIA's hardware encoder, in place, older GeForce GPUs (GTX 600-series and newer that support NVENC) will also see some benefits. GeForce RTX GPUs just get to enjoy a bit more- up to 15% more, in fact, in efficiency as far as bitrate consumption for the same graphical fidelity. NVIDIA effectively says that "GeForce RTX GPUs can stream with superior image quality compared to x264 Fast, and on par with x264 Medium", thus putting in a strong case for single-PC gaming and streaming, as opposed to having a dedicated streaming PC. They have even put out a video to go over the enhancements, which will no doubt interest game streamers on the PC platform.

Google sent out a fairly cryptic invite to the game developers and associated press this week in the form of a GIF (converted into relevant images below). It teases a keynote on March 19, 2019 and more information was made available shortly confirming this would be in the form of a keynote to be held at 10 am PST during GDC this year. The media giant promises to "reveal all", and also has developer-focused sessions throughout the course of the event. An early report from The Information suggests the keynote will have Google talk about their new game-streaming service, code-named Yeti. This is in line with our own expectations, after having participated in the fairly successful Project Stream beta test that concluded recently.

Kotaku went further to suggest that Yeti is a streaming service in conjunction with a hardware platform- a simple streaming box, if you will, to take on the dedicated game consoles of 2019 and beyond. Indeed, Google has been wanting to get into this highly lucrative market, with intentions to take over Twitch before Amazon pulled one over them. There remain many challenges in general to a game-streaming world, not least of which were detailed in our own editorial linked above. But, with the next generation consoles getting ready for development and Microsoft willing to explore a game-streaming future themselves, perhaps Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and others should pay very close attention to said Google keynote in less than a month's time.

In 2010, a company called OnLive believed that game streaming was the future. The problem was that they believed that this future would come sooner than what ended up happening. The company (or rather, its IP) would end up being bought by Sony instead. The Japanese company then launched PlayStation Now later, which in itself is a cloud gaming platform that finally brought us closer to that future.

They weren't the only ones hedging this bet, however, and soon the cloud gaming fever spread to other companies and manufacturers. NVIDIA's GeForce NOW is one of the clearest examples of that venture, with its own pros and cons. But now we have a new, promising competitor in this field: Google, which announced yesterday the birth of the so-called "Project Stream". As the name suggests, this initiative is intended to offer end users the possibility of playing any game from any device and with only one requirement: to have access to the Google Chrome browser.