Ubisoft survey - possible direction they're thinking

[imposter]

So I had a feedback request from Ubisoft the other day. Which turned out to be a survey on my gaming preferences, platforms and hardware. They seemed particularly keen to understand if I would play AAA games on my phone. Either directly or streaming from my PC/console.

I'll admit that I once tried that with Steamlink. I loaded steam on a old laptop and streamed a game. The experience was less than steller. Bear in mind I was in the same room as my PC at the time of this experiment and I could see the action on both my PC and laptop. There was noticable lag even using a lan cable on the laptop. After a very short time [like <1min] I concluded that the idea was stupid and not worth taking the gameplay performance hit to sit on the couch with a controller. I would rather invest in a comfy PC chair than extra hardware to steam to.

Have things changed? Do people really want to stream a game from their PC to their phone now! It baffles me that anyone would. It's like having access to a Mercedes Benz, and leaving it parked up while you drive around in an old beat up car.

The other thing they seemed keen on in the survey was cloud gaming. Once more, I know it's the in-thing, really why would you?

I guess Ubi are looking at a peice of the cloud and phone gaming market.

 

[drunkpunk]

Somehow mobile gaming is a big market. I worked for a particular publisher right around the time they started making a big push into mobile gaming and it's a big money maker. I don't really get it, phones just don't seem like a very comfortable or capable device to game on for more than 5 minutes at a time, but perhaps that's enough to keep the market successful. I know cloud gaming is becoming more capable but that doesn't really change how awkward it can be to use something like a phone to play a game.

But then again, I'm clearly not the target audience as I prefer to sit in front of my PC when I play games.

 

[imposter]

But then again, I'm clearly not the target audience as I prefer to sit in front of my PC when I play games.

That was the conclusion I came to, that I'm not the target market for mobile gaming. Hopefully the PC market remains a worthwhile slice of the pie for years to come.

 

[Zloth]

Yeah, I'm also not in that market. The key is in the name: MOBILE

This is for playing games when you're nowhere near a computer but have time to kill. For me, that's practically never. But if you commute on a bus/train/subway, you could have a couple of hours every day for it. Or while waiting for the kids to finish sports/music/whatever practice so you can drive them home. And so on....

 

[invader]

Well, that depends on the game. I like to play some visual novels and puzzles from time to time and steam link (the app) has worked like a charm. Haven't tried more lag sensitive games because for those I need my mouse... Usually.And the bigger screen.
I managed to play a couple of hours of tomb raider in my tv. It was less than stellar but doable and I was comfy. Of course could not enjoy the eye candy details though because the TV I have sucks.

 

[Brian Boru]

cloud gaming … really why would you?

There's a big efficiency factor there which is presumably irresistible. 5G should make it possible, if not then China already launched a 6G test satellite.

We won't need expensive parts for gaming any longer—all the processing will be done on super-duper servers while all we need are good monitors and input devices.

Huge savings for consumers in hardware, and probably in software too assuming Game Pass becomes the standard.

 

[ZedClampet]

I guess Ubi are looking at a peice of the cloud and phone gaming market.

They are already experimenting with it. If you sign up to their monthly thing, you can access their games for free on Amazon's new streaming platform and stream to your PC or phone. I think it's only free while the Amazon thing is in beta. There's a process you have to go through to get into it.

 

[Dakkon]

So sad gaming industry is leaning towards mobile gaming. I know that's where money trail leads but I'll never understand it.
When I think of mobile games I usually think Candy Crush or some other idle game.

 

[Zloth]

Leaning? I think they've already leaned about as much as they are going to lean.

 

[imposter]

If the cloud gaming model turned into a spotify subscription model, that might be interesting. I'd consider [yet another] tenner-a-month to have the choice of the Steam/Epic/Ubi/Google/Amazon/Whoever catalogue. I just wouldn't want to pay a tenner-a-month to all of them.

 

[Frindis]

I have nothing against playing a card game, minesweeper, or a similar small game on a phone, but an AAA game? Not in a million years.