Will cloud computing technologies revolutionize mobile gaming?


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So, this is something that's been on my mind for quite a good while. I've always wondered, will 'cloud computing' technologies breathe life into mobile gaming and allow these devices to do things they previously were very incapable of doing due to hardware limitations? Quoting Wikipedia, "Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like a public utility."

Essentially, cloud computing would allow you to run applications hosted on hardware that utilize the resources of said hardware. All you need to do is have a solid connection to this hardware. What am I getting at here? Well, by utilizing the resources of "cloud" hardware, graphically-intensive games could essentially run on hardware (whether mobile device, netbook, or even lower-spec'd PC) as long as there's an Internet connection capable of handling the intense data transfer that such a service may require.

This technology is in the works by AMD in the form of their "Fusion Render Cloud" which was in development, and, according to the latest chatter will be "brought to market" Q2 of 2010. If I remember correctly, a few others were also working on similar technology that has enormous potential. Imagine playing through some of the MW2 campaign at home, only to continue playing it on your netbook on the go. Not a fan of small screens? Then this technology comes in handy for you if you wish to play Crysis on your older machine.

Picture technology such as AMD's Fusion Render Cloud paired with Xbox LIVE integration in WP7. What do you guys think about this? :)

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Yes and No. Yes, but 3G bandwith limitations will mean this won't be feasible for a long time - but the problem is will this gap between now and truly unlimited 3G/4G bandwith allow for mobile devices to catch up performance wise and thus negate the need for cloud computing in mobile devices (for games, anyway)?

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Hopefully it should bring a few more nice MMO's .. and probably a new DRM whereas you have to vertify the game's credentials online before being able to play.

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No, even if you offloaded all the rendering to a local server, the latency would hurt it.

It's like OnLive, they have to overcome some really hard problems (some of which can't be overcome), mobile makes it 10x worse.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Even when I get about 300kb/s speed over 3G on my iPhone, the latency is still about 1000ms. This might be feasible to display a streaming video but there'll always be a second of lagtime.

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