Nintendo's Iwata Says Cloud Gaming Isn't The Future

Can I thumbs. Down iwata?
EVERYONE THUMB ME DOWN TO COUNT IN TOWARDS THUMBING IWATA DOWN

I'm sure Nintendo thinks that the whole internets thing is just a fad too.

waiter! I'll have whatever that jap is smoking

Holy **** that's racist! Thumbs up!

Two thumbs up!

Well, once Nintendo learns the internet then they will figure out what Cloud gaming does. I guess they have never played Steam before.

Steam isn't cloud based 100% You're probably thinking of cloud saves that lets people pick up their progress and achievements from any computer. You still have to install games onto your hard drive from Steam.


It's still going to be quite a while before streaming resource intensive games will become the norm, especially in areas that don't get high speed internet.

To be fair, Valve says the same thing.

I think that by cloud gaming, Iwata is referring specifically to having a client send commands to and receive processed images from a centralized server that is running the software. In which case, I tend to agree--the latency is just too great for a truly engaging experience.

Here is the full (poor) translation, courtesy of Chrome:

"Cloud gaming is one of the words you hear a lot lately, I think that I would like you to understand you, the fact that "there can and can not do in the cloud gaming." The cloud that is an attempt at hand rather than the processing device, and try to do it on the Internet server. That takes a long time to say what happens when such a thing, to exchange data with internet access, because it takes time to an absolute, the result is to come back from doing something at hand become."

"Of course, there is also a variety of games to play with no trouble at all it takes is time, insofar as such, "a display means and input means at hand, the action is performed on the server all" that might be possible. On the other hand, highly interactive, game-based action, the motion by the difference of and a critical time to react to the screen actually press the button, (number of updates per second image) frame rate, especially

So I may not go with the smoothness of the will change, depending on what types of games, have to go across the Internet. On the laws of physics, because it takes time to transfer the data, in Internet technology now, the data arrives to the server In fact, it even sent an image is generated instantly on the server, the delay absolutely I is generated."

"Therefore, to say that all games will be the cloud game, who should there are quite a few that you can not, without being told about it is to the general public is "the future is a cloud," who is the talk of the spirit like that too so many, I have been very feel uncomfortable."

Doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me. I agree 100%.

How can you agree when that passage is unreadable? Cloud gaming will be the way to go and everything will be 100% digital soon. It's cheaper in the long run to do things digitally and Nintendo is always 5 years behind in technology.

In the context of Iwata's comments, cloud gaming specifically means "server-side applications." Steam =/= cloud gaming. The Steam software itself runs on your computer, and all of the games run on your computer.

I completely disagree that we are going to see the disappearance of gaming hardware on the consumer side. That's all Iwata is saying, and that's all I'm saying.

I would agree with it only if high speed internet was extremely common. It seems funny how the United States is big in everything but the ISPs can't be bothered to give their high speed internet to anyone that doesn't live in a major city while ISPs in other countries seem to offer better speeds no matter where you live.

Don't forget price. Anything above 20mpb/s is outrageous. I'm currently paying $30 a month for 15 which isn't bad, but my provider wants $100 for anything above 50. They need to lower the price of higher speeds so things like cloud gaming become the norm.

The only real advantage for the consumer in terms of cloud applications, as far as I can tell, is that it lightens the hardware requirements on the consumer end of things. Unfortunately, as quickly as companies are developing cheaper and cheaper computers that need only run a browser, it seems it is not much faster than the development of cheaper computers with the hardware necessary to run all of your applications locally.

Gaming, I should think, is poorly suited to server-side processing. Latency will always be an issue so long as information can not be transmitted faster than the speed of light, and the only real solution is to place your expensive server farms all over the ****ing place to minimize it.

So I have to agree with Iwata and Sliverstorm here.

100$ for 50 mbp!?!
I pay about 40$ for 100/100 :)

$40 is 20 with my provider. That's California for you. Everything is over priced and over protected here.

Thumbs down me if you want to thumbs down iwata

Is there an Anti-TPS?

This was discussed in the last TPS, and it was agreed that BigTruckSeries would win every week so it was pointless.

I believe those were my words in fact! And Elmore agreed with me. As he should, since its completely true.

Man... i thought he was gonna say "Cloud-Gaming is just a fad... cause we invented something ONE HUNDRED TIME MORE RADICAL!"
Then some T-rex on a skateboard would appear on stage giving the horns as a sign drops on stage where you can read "Welcome to Fire-Gaming!"

But noooo... it's just a guy who is making premature judgements of current technology. Man Nintendo missed some good opportunity here.

They probably said that because they don't want to pour money into it.

Given Silverstorm's comments above (thanks, Silverstorm!) it appears he's talking about a technology (cloud computing) which is not feasible at present. In the US, at least, it's going to be years before HD quality video streaming will be a normal, accessible thing which content providers can assume their audience is capable of doing. Putting that to one side the demands of doing live over-the-wire computing assume faster connections than most people have. It's actually cheaper for a consumer to just build a machine to the specs required in some regions of the US (particularly in what bicoastal narcissists derisively call 'flyover country') than to invest in the connection required to get a streaming game service running well.

It's true that Cloud gaming doesn't sound like the greatest thing at the moment, but i remember people saying similar comments in regard to DvD, Cell phones and even the internet in it's infant stage. I rest my case when i said it was a premature judgment because cloud gaming is still in its infancy. Give it time and it will be a natural thing. Even if the internet world will become faster, stronger and more spread in the united states (and in countries that can't even get a good reception of... just about anything really), i'll assume that in the future cloud gaming will greatly improve to the point where you would require less internet connection then today and less resource in general.

Satoru Iwata does, however, have the right to criticized the technology. I prefer someone challenge an idea before it becomes perfection then accept one and tolerate its many flaws.

And I'm sure people thought Betamax and HD DVD would catch on and we saw how well those turned out. Not everything brand new in technology will always be a major hit. No one knows exactly if cloud computing/gaming will be the norm or just another "could have been good" tech.

It's possible that improvements in software and hardware will improve things. But we're talking about things yet to come and speaking of them as if they already were. There has never been a time or place in history where it was not rash. The thing about DVDs is that the format was available before the medium was used to great effect (the landmark is the DVD release of The Matrix, which came with a bevy of special features and a transfer superior to what VHS can do) and before that it was little more than the much more expensive and sometimes inferior (the original Goodfellas DVD release was awful) but in no way noticeably better format. Then Janus films started releasing DVDs like...well...the entire Criterion Collection, and the rest is history. Also, cell phones and the internet were around for years before they became widespread.

Since I can't reply to you separately Wildmario; Betamax did catch on in Europe, where it remained the preferred format until DVD overtook it.

What people seem to forget is the current methods of streaming games is easy because most are small games. I have heard about larger games being streamed but I do not know how well those are doing right now. What I think is cloud based gaming is pretty darn convenient, but since it's all server based, it's open to a number of problems.

First, the server has to be able to handle streaming its games to everyone who connects to them. As we all seen before, if a server is overwhelmed, it goes down. If a server dies, then you can't play the game (think of it like the PSN hacking incident, but worse). If the company decides to pull the plug on the servers and cut support, the games can no longer be played. Clould based gaming also relies on high speed connections, which is still not common in many parts of the United States and other parts of the world. With video games becoming more and more resource intensive, the servers used for cloud gaming has to be just as powerful to stream it all

I think the ultimate realization of cloud gaming devices would be one in which the client end is just a dummy terminal. John Carmack pointed to it as a possible permanent solution to cheating in online games years ago. Then, as now, bandwidth is the main issue.

Agreed, bandwidth will be the biggest issue for many years to come.

If you're really into graphics and hardcore gaming then I don't think you'd want cloud gaming to be your future. I heard there are graphic artifacts due to compression and there is a bit slower response for the controls. Maybe one day it will be a viable alternative for the causal gamer, who don't want to spend more than $300 for a video game console and don't care about graphical quality.

And if they only care about games like Angry Birds.

Not the future or not Nintendo's future? Big difference. Infrastructure still has a long way to go, but the industry will push for cloud gaming because it gives them ownership & control over the product.