There have been rumors and reports of Google wanting to enter the gaming space for a very long time now. We’ve had reports of a Google console, as well as a streaming service, with Google even holding a public beta for the latter late last year. However, now, we may be about to get the full picture of Google’s gaming aspirations.

This morning, Google sent out invitations to multiple gaming outlets for a keynote it will hold next month, in March, that will be focused on its gaming initiatives. The keynote is scheduled for March 19 at 10 AM PST/1 PM EST. That apart, we know nothing about what this will even entail. It could be anything from new Play Store APIs for Android gaming, to more details on Google’s streaming service, to, hell, a new Google gaming console, or Google funded high budget AAA video games.

Right now, all we can do is guess, but I feel like Google’s entry in the market would give it a shakeup I’d like to see. And hey, Google probably wants to beat Apple to the punch.

Game streaming seems to be the next big thing that just about every big player in the industry seems to be pushing for. Google, Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, Amazon, and Sony are just among the very many big name companies we have heard of experimenting with game streaming, and now it looks like an even bigger name may be about to join the fray. The biggest name of all, in fact.

According to a report from Cheddar, Apple is looking into starting a “Netflix for games” (sound familiar?), and will be acting more proactively with distributing games on this service than ever before, including acting as a publisher for the games on it.

Anything beyond that is unclear right now—what games would these be? App Store games? Would they be bigger AAA games, or indie titles? What devices would the service be available on? What would pricing be like? The report says these details are currently not finalized, and that Apple may well abandon the concept entirely.

But one this is for sure—between this report, and the one that the iPod Touch may be getting rebranded as a gaming handheld, it sounds like Apple may at last be beginning to take video games more seriously.

If you were to believe EA, and Ubisoft, and Microsoft, and Google, and even Sony with PS Now, you would think that game streaming is the future. Indeed, it’s something we have heard for over a decade now, but with more and more big players beginning to throw their hat into the ring, you have to wonder whether or not there might be some merit to the argument this time around.

Speaking to Marc-André Jutras, a veteran of Ubisoft and Activision, having worked on multiple AAA games in the past, and currently working with brand new studio Cradle Games on the stark looking science fiction RPG Hellpoint, we decided to ask him what he felt about the future of streaming as a means of games delivery and consumption for the industry and the medium.

“I know that in some countries of the world that kind of streaming is becoming more popular. I know in Brazil there is a streaming company that is very popular, because people don’t have money to buy a console, and would rather pay $10 a month and play a variety of games by streaming,” he said. “I think it will become more popular, but I don’t think it will replace proper hardware. Because playing Call of Duty on streaming? That just doesn’t work. When you consider internet infrastructure, it means that instead of you clicking a button and getting the feedback on your screen, you have 100ms of lag for the input, another 100ms of lag for the output, as the data travels to and from your client, and if the host machine processing the data also has its own delay, then there’s another 100ms or so of latency added. Can you imagine playing Call of Duty with that kind of latency? Where it takes 100ms for the server to just know you are firing a gun?

“I think it works well with offline games. But the moment you take something online, like a shooter where you need a split second reaction, it doesn’t work. So will it be popular? I’m not sure.”

One of the things we have heard, however, is that the companies investing in streaming this time around are trying to sidestep these kinds of issues. So we asked him if he felt that Sony and Microsoft, for example, were equipped to deal with these problems. According to him, these are not problems you can throw money at to make them go away

“The problem is that it’s not something you can suddenly throw money at and make the problem disappear. The network latency in the last 20 years hasn’t moved much. We are limited by the speed of light when it comes to this in the end. The data from your computer to your router to your neighbourhood ISP to whatever switch to node to node to the server farm… you will end up with lag, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Streaming, then, will not define the next generation of game consoles—rather, it will be a means to expand the reach of gaming into new markets, like the aforementioned Brazil, as well as India and China.

“No, it will offer games to a new market that can’t buy consoles [at the level of sales that happen where console gaming is popular like in the USA], like China and India, and to those who don’t have hundreds of bucks to buy a PlayStation,” he said. “But if for $10 a month, they can play 10% of the PlayStation catalog that works well with streaming, that’s awesome, and it’s a lot of revenue for Sony as well. And it makes sense for Sony to have PS5 be backward compatible too, because it opens up thousands of games for the streaming catalog.”

It’s an interesting take, and I do agree that streaming in and of itself will never replace traditional gaming, no matter what. Given the relatively poor infrastructure for internet in some countries, I don’t know if it will necessarily take off there as a replacement for console gaming, but I certainly see it having a better future on that front than as a means for mainstream games consumption, that’s for sure.

Game streaming is starting to slowly become a thing in the gaming market now. PS Now has been offered to people for a few years, and Microsoft has announced Project xCloud, while Google has Project Stream coming up (these people really aren’t good at coming up with names). Even Nintendo has streaming solutions in place, with games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey being offered to Switch owners in Japan via streaming.

But that is only in Japan—it’s not been done in the west yet. There’s good reason for that, according to Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. Speaking to Kotaku in an interview, Fils-Aime noted that for now, the infrastructure necessary to bring viable game streaming to the masses simply does not exist in the US.

“It’s specific to Japan because of the internet infrastructure that exists in that country. Very high-speed wireless capability. The ability to have a great experience in,” Fils-Aime said.

When pointed out to him that other services are offering streaming in the States, Fils-Aime said that the quality of connections offered in the country are simply not up to par. That said, he did say that Nintendo will continue to monitor this area.

“And so from that standpoint we’re looking at that activity as a very interesting test case and certainly is going to drive our thinking and our potential investments here in the Americas.”

Of course, given that the Switch offers you the chance to take your games with you wherever you go natively, streaming isn’t something that it really needs anyway. So there is that.

And you know what, Microsoft is probably right. Given the expertise the company has in the cloud market thanks to Azure (where they’re the number two player globally), plus the sheer amount of infrastructure they have in place around the world, and the dissemination of Microsoft services and products across all forms of modern computing, they may actually be primed to move into what could very well be the future of gaming, a future beyond gaming consoles, and one that allows the medium to grow far beyond where it is at currently. There’s just one problem: Sony may have beaten them to the punch already.

A lot of analyses and opinion pieces on xCloud and what it could mean for the future of gaming have been written over the last week, with a great many of them actually taking the chance to put xCloud against Google’s Project Stream, and how the two may end up initiating a fresh round of platform wars in an altogether new sphere. The only issue is, they seem to be, curiously enough, neglecting mention of Sony and PS Now entirely.

"It’s a very interesting proposition—the full Xbox library, playable on any device via streaming, allowing you the ability to take your games with you and play anywhere."

I don’t quite understand why. I’m not the biggest fan of PS Now as it exists. The service isn’t available globally, requires often prohibitively high internet speeds for the mass market, has an absurd pricing model, and to my mind, does not adequately address concerns of latency for the bulk of games that are currently popular on the market. It’s available on a very limited range of devices (a range that has actually gotten narrower over the last few years, since Sony discontinued support for the PS Now client for a lot of hardware). And yet, in spite of these concerns, there’s an inescapable fact that anyone looking at game streaming as the future needs to confront: PS Now is here and now. It exists. It’s on the market. It has a library of over 500 games. It has a user base. It has a headstart on the competition, and has had time to iron the kinks that a streaming service entails out. It is, for all purposes, the incumbent in the current streaming market, such as it is.

I am not for a moment suggesting PS Now in its current form is good enough for the larger streaming market, an admission Sony themselves tacitly made when they announced they’ll let subscribers download games to play them locally ala Game Pass. But what I am saying is that Sony, now that it is aware of bigger names trying to move into the arena, is primed to act quickly and try to position PS Now as a far more attractive and alluring proposition, ironing out whatever problems still exist with it, and giving it a formidable lead by the time xCloud and Project Stream arrive on the market.

This is all a hypothetical, of course. But the thing is, Sony understands the value of game streaming—they clearly do, that’s what they invested in Gaikai, and launched PS Now to begin with. They obviously know it’s a play they have to make to secure a place for themselves in the future of gaming. And yet, they’ve been curiously reticent to actually act decisively on it so far. Presumably, that has been because they haven’t had any reason to, and they don’t want to detract from the core PS4 business—why would they, when it is doing so perfectly fine, after all?

"Sony, now that it is aware of bigger names trying to move into the arena, is primed to act quickly and try to position PS Now as a far more attractive and alluring proposition, ironing out whatever problems still exist with it, and giving it a formidable lead by the time xCloud arrives on the market."

But here’s the thing: now they have a reason to. The space is no longer their own, and Microsoft and Google are far better funded, far more technologically accomplished, far better outfitted companies than Sony is, and can easily claim the market for themselves if they want to. This is the kick up the hind side Sony needed to get their act together. If they are truly serious about game streaming, they can act swiftly, and make PS Now so widely disseminated that customers fail to see the value in approaching Microsoft and Google’s offerings.

Sony can get PS Now on multiple devices—put it on Android phones, put it on iOS phones, go back to offering it for Smart TVs (and not just their own). Lower the subscription price, bring it down to $10 a month. Open up more data centres around the world to combat the problem of latency and lag (a problem that would only get compounded once more people join the service). Maybe push PS Now for free for PS Plus subscribers (or vice versa). Add more games to the library, and don’t be afraid to offer new PS4 releases on there (even if Sony doesn’t let people download them). Just get more people subscribed to the service and streaming.

The thing is, Sony is primed to counter Microsoft and Google before they even get a chance to get their footing. If the future of gaming is streaming, then it’s worth acting swiftly now to secure it. They’ve already gotten the current generation of consoles sewn up for themselves. Now to eye the future.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Google’s streaming initiative is something that has been rumoured for a while; however, now the search giant itself has revealed it as Project Stream. Yeah, they’re not going to be winning any prizes for creativity with that name.

Project Stream is Google’s attempt at addressing some for the biggest problems inherent with streaming media over the internet, chief of which is latency. And as a proof of concept of their technology, they’ve decided to demonstrate Project Stream with “one of the most demanding applications”, a “blockbuster video game”.

Google will take Project Stream into beta this Friday, October 5– on that day, a select number of users will be able to play Assassin’s Creed Odyssey in their Google Chrome browser free of charge. You can register to be one of those selected for this beta test on the Project Stream website, but there’s a lot of catches in place. You need to be living in the United States, be 17 years or older, and have an internet connection that is 25mb/s or higher.

That said, if this works? Given how many companies seem to be investing in streaming as the future of gaming, Google could have a big jump on them.