WEBVTT - The Google Stadia Story 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.360 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with Heart Radio and 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.880 I love all things tech and you know, guys, I 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.880 really I enjoy playing PC games a lot. But one 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:30.280 thing I am not super crazy about is having to 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.720 upgrade my system on the RAG in order to keep 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.280 up with the latest advancements in gaming. This is something 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:41.040 that first started happening to me back in the nineties, 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.720 and I hated it then and I hate it now. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.240 I'm one of those folks who gets rubbed the wrong 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.479 way when I have to turn down a graphics setting 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.080 in a game just so that the game will run 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.280 more smoothly. You know, in my head, I'm always thinking, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.520 this isn't how the game is supposed to be played. 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.280 It's supposed to be played at the top of those settings. 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.920 That's what they made it for. But my machine just 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.760 can't do that. Keeping up with the latest in graphics 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:12.600 hardware is really expensive, and sometimes it's just plain impossible 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.280 because of all of the gosh dang bitcoin miners who 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:20.360 are scooping up all the ding dang during GPUs pardon 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:25.720 my language. Well, consoles are an alternative to two PCs, 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.959 I mean, obviously, but they come with their own drawbacks. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.880 For one thing, tracking down a PS five is a 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.679 devilish lee hard thing to do right now as I 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:38.920 record this episode. For another, the latest generation of consoles 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.760 don't really have a robust library to draw from yet 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.600 their their brand new. The pandemic really messed up video 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.000 game development. Most games that are available right now are 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.960 remasters or titles that span generations of consoles. So you 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.560 could get the PS five version of a game, but 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:00.760 you're also thinking, yeah, but this is also available on 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.120 the PS four. I could just play this game on 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:06.600 a cheaper console. Plus, you still have to upgrade every 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:08.440 so often, right, I mean, if you want to keep up, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.480 you've got to buy another console when a new one 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.920 comes out. Those some companies like Sony have a reputation 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.320 of supporting older systems far beyond the launch of the 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.640 subsequent PlayStation console. Uh. The PS four is not really 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.040 one of those, actually, because in order to try and 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.919 meet more demand for PS five, Sony recently announced that 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:34.560 it was discontinuing nearly all PS four models in an 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:39.640 effort to switch their manufacturing process over to making more 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.679 PS five consoles. But what if you didn't have to 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.000 worry about any of that, right, what if you could 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.480 just subscribe to a service where you never needed to 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.440 worry about upgrading your system because the games you play 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.480 wouldn't be running on your device. It would be running 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.440 on someone else's computer and it would be a screaming 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.760 fast computer with the capability to push out four K 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:07.160 resolution video, and you could play these games pretty much 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.160 on anything, on a computer or maybe on your TV, 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.960 or even on your phone. That is the sales pitch 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:18.080 for Google Stadium, a game streaming service, something that Google 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:23.520 first unveiled in March nineteen during the Game Developers Conference. Now, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:28.359 let's be clear, Google Stadia is by far not the 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:32.960 only cloud gaming service out there that does this. I mean, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.560 you can do this with PlayStation now, on Sony consoles 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.240 or on a PC. Microsoft has x Cloud, which currently 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.960 runs on Windows ten and Android and will later run 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.440 on iOS devices. And sometimes we call these types of 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:51.960 models gaming on demand or sometimes cloud gaming. And Google 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.680 Stadia or these other services. None of these are the 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.000 first ones either. So today we're gonna talk about the 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:03.360 history of cloud gaming and Google Stadia in particular. Now, 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.720 I can't do just a full episode just on Google Stadia. 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.480 There's not enough to talk about, and that's a big 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.600 part of the problem with Google Stadia. But I can 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:16.440 explain the process of where this came from. Now you 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.520 could argue that we saw the groundwork laid for cloud 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.960 based gaming systems with games like the old M M 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.440 O RPGs of the late nineties and early two thousands. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.960 I'm talking Your Ultimate Onlines, Your Ever Quests, and later 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:36.839 Your World of Warcrafts. These required players to install software 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:41.159 to their home systems that contained many of the assets 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.920 needed for the game. And then you have online servers 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.640 often called shards in the early days thanks to Ultimate Online. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.360 And then you have those coordinating the actions of hundreds 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.800 or potentially thousands of players so that you at playing 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.400 locally on your machine see where everybody else happens to be. 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.039 Because of this relationship between your computer and the server, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.320 these games typically took forms where problems like latency and 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.720 data transfer speeds wouldn't be a huge issue, and the 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.000 local machines did a lot of the heavy lifting. So 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.039 in this case, you're talking about a computer that's still 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.960 running some hefty software on its own and then is 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:27.640 working in tandem with a game server. But even the 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:32.440 history of cloud gaming proper dates back quite a ways, 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:36.800 and it also includes one of the greatest examples of vaporware. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.160 And according to at least some accounts, it was a 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:44.320 total scam. So let's take a very quick detour to 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:49.799 talk about the Phantom. Now, way back in two thousand three, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.720 a company called Infinium Labs announced that it was working 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:59.080 on a revolutionary gaming console it called the Phantom, and 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.159 that name would out to be prophetic and the gold 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.880 mine for snarky headlines, including some that I wrote. It 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.120 was going to be an on demand video game service. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:14.120 It was essentially the basic concept for cloud based video 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.760 game streaming stuff we actually have today. But back in 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:22.479 two thousand three, this was an incredibly ambitious plan. Now 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.560 I say that not because the technology needed to run 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:30.680 such stuff is particularly advanced. A decently configured PC could 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.760 run games pretty well. You would need to build out 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.440 the framework for the service. On the user side, you'd 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.120 have to have some sort of portal through which the 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:43.159 user could remotely log into that PC that's running the game. 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:45.960 So you would need to build some sort of software 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.680 to allow for that, but it's essentially a remote log in. 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.560 On a conceptual level, at least, it's not that complicated. 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.160 But back in two thousand three, broadband was still just 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.440 gradually rolling out to most of the people who would 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.919 be viable customers for such a service. Heck, according to 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.360 the site all Connect, back in two thousand four, some 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.680 of Internet users were still relying on dial up modems, 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:16.160 and since those top out at fifty six kilobits per second, 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.560 there's no way you'd have any sort of satisfying game 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.520 experience on that kind of connection. Even if we were 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.440 to assume that the actual Phantom business model was that 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.440 you were to download games but you would only be 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.560 able to play them for as long as you had 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:36.160 the permission from Infinium Labs. That would take ages over 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.640 fifty six kilobits per second data line. That being said, 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.680 the way the Phantom was marketed it sounded more like 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.800 cloud gaming, less like you purchase a game and download 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.760 it to your device. For modern cloud gaming services, you're 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.480 generally looking at a recommended minimum bandwidth of around ten 0:07:55.600 --> 0:08:00.280 to fifteen megabits per second, and that's at the slowest level. 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.320 But even at that slow quote unquote level. That's nearly 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.520 times faster than the top speed you would get with 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.640 a dial up modem. At that speed, you're probably looking 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.160 at games running at just seven twenty P resolution, which 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.960 isn't even HD quality. So if you did want four 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.680 K gaming, you're gonna need some fatter pipes, as they say, 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.280 to deliver information faster. And by faster, I really mean 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.600 amount of data per second. The transmission speed of the 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:36.800 signal is something else entirely, but that does raise another question. See, 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.719 besides the barrier of how much data you can pull 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:44.599 down per second, you also have latency issues. Latency is 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.640 the lag you experienced between when you send a command 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.080 and when you see that command carried out. So if 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.240 you've ever been on a website and you clicked on 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:54.840 a link and then you had to wait a bit 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:59.079 before anything happened, that's latency. And there's a lot of 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.160 stuff that can cause cause latency, from the programming of 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.840 a game to the distance that's between you and whatever 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.400 machine that game is actually running on. Heck, if you're 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.800 playing on a local machine, so it's a computer that's 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.360 like right in front of you, and it's in your home, 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.600 and you have a wired controller connected to your computer, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:24.480 but for some reason, that controller has an absurdly long chord, 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:29.200 like in this case, something that's many, many, many miles long. 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.080 And I get it, this is an absurd, unrealistic example, 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.040 but I'm making a point here. Because that cable would 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.240 be many miles long, you would experience latency as you 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.560 push buttons and move the thumbsticks around because it does 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.240 take time for the signal to pass through from the 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.079 controller to your console. Now, we've got to keep in 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.720 mind that the fastest speed anything can travel in our 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:57.120 universe is the speed of light. However, signals moving through 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.240 cable move a little slower than that. If we're talking 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.720 about coaxial cable, the electrical signal travels about two thirds 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.720 the speed of light, So the speed of transmission depends 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.840 upon the medium through which the signal is traveling. Anyway, 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.640 my point is that the further the signal needs to 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.599 travel from the host computer that's running the game to 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.000 whatever device you're using to play the game, the more 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:27.480 latency you're going to encounter. Because physics, one way to 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.000 cope with this is to have a lot of memory 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.199 and the user's device and load as much of the 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.480 game as possible onto the local machine, you know, the 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.640 one connected to your television, for example, and it would 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.840 be pulling data locally as much as it possibly could 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.920 in order to cut down on things like latency as 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.480 well as delivering higher resolution experience for you. But this 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.680 would mean you would need to wait while your device 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.360 pulled down data from the host. It would be buffering. Essentially. 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.439 This has its own set of problems. It's not a 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.719 very practical solution. Games frequently are not optimized for this 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.200 sort of play. Most developers create games with the assumption 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:06.959 that those games are just going to be played on 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.560 a local device, So creating a game that can manage 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.079 data this way requires a more specialized approach, and in fact, 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.040 most of the time you're looking at a specific certification 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.319 process for games to run on cloud gaming services in 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.760 order to deliver the experience that the game developers intend 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.479 the user to have. Then there's the way that information 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.599 travels across the Internet. We're not gonna go all the 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.320 way into packet switching and everything that would take forever, 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.000 but just imagine an actual net criss cross of all 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.480 these different lines. So this is the kind of net 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.120 that you would catch fishing. That mesh is made up 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.640 of these little lines that link with one another. So 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.000 imagine that each of those links, each of those points 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:55.280 where the the mesh is meeting, that represents a server 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.559 or a router or a computer that's connected to the Internet, 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.320 and you pick two links that are a good distance 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:05.120 from each other. On the Internet, information can travel pretty 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.199 much any available route between those two points, and it 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:12.199 travels in packets, so not all the packets follow the 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.880 same pathway. This is part of what makes the Internet 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:19.360 so robust because there are multiple pathways from the source 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.439 to the destination, so information can get to where it's 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.280 going even if some servers or routers go offline in 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.960 between the source and the destination. In other words, if 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.000 I were sending you a file from my computer to 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.240 your computer, the file would get divided up into packets 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.480 of data, and those packets would travel across the Internet, 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:46.080 going through various pathways, and then arrive at your computer 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.440 and get reassembled like a puzzle, and then you would 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.439 get the file. That's the way the Internet works, but 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:56.440 it does create some challenges when you're developing streaming services. Now, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.680 clearly it is possible to build out low latency high 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:03.120 band with connections. But back in the early two thousands 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:08.240 when Infinium Labs launched, these were in really concentrated regions 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.120 and major metropolitan areas, and they were largely restricted to 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:17.840 enterprise level transactions, which means this infrastructure wasn't really robust 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.000 yet and most end users wouldn't have access to the 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.760 speeds needed to deliver a good experience. So all of 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.800 this is to say that the technical requirements needed to 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.600 make the phantom viable, we're not really what we had 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.760 available to us back in the early two thousand's, at 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:38.080 least not from an Internet infrastructure perspective. If you did 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:42.080 have broadband, and if Infinium Labs had built out lots 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.640 of servers near your neck of the woods so that 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.880 you're not dialing halfway across the globe to play a game, 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:53.559 then arguably it was possible, but not necessarily practical, and 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:58.079 not at very high resolutions or frame rates. And just 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.520 to answer that question, frame rate or first to the 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.840 number of frames or images that appear in a second 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.840 on your display. Higher frame rate generally means smoother animation, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.920 which is pretty easy to grasp. So imagine it's your 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.520 job to draw a series of images that show a 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.040 stick figure running, and you're going to flip through these 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.800 images in a second. If you only have three sheets 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.120 of paper, then you're only allowed to draw one image 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.520 per sheet. You're really limited on the number of poses 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.720 that you can draw. You can only draw three poses, 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.760 so you're not gonna have a very smooth running animation. 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.240 If you have thirty sheets of paper, you can create 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.080 a lot more poses, and you have allowed for smoother 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:43.920 animation when those thirty sheets are are flipped within one second. 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.640 If you had sixty sheets of paper, you could create 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.440 even more subtle transitions and the animation would look even 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.560 more smooth, and you start hitting diminishing returns after a while, 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.520 particularly if you're consistently animating the sheets by flipping them 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.080 at that same speed or as in like all the 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:06.000 sheets within a second. But generally speaking, the benchmark and 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.240 gaming tends to be around sixty frames per second, with 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.840 thirty frames being considered acceptable. Anything less than that is 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.800 a problem. Anyway, that wasn't the end of the questions 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.840 about the Phantom. People also wondered how this little startup 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:25.000 would form the business relationships necessary to secure rights with 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.440 all those video game companies in order to sell titles 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.080 to customers. Back in the physical media days, it was 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.480 easy to think, hey, I bought a copy of this game. 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.600 This copy of the game is mine, after all, we 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:42.200 had the physical copy. But as streaming services began to appear, 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.960 that thinking transitioned into I have purchased a license to 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.720 access this content. The same would be true for games, 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.520 but established video game companies weren't likely to just allow 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.920 us start up to purchase copies of games and then 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.480 rent out time on fast machines so that other people 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.680 could play those games without having to buy their own copy. 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.040 There was going to be some sort of licensing fee 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:08.240 and agreement that would need to be in place for 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.440 that to happen, and that that's where things start to 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.920 get really complicated. There was no guarantee that any two 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:18.160 video game publishers would even behave in the same way, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.680 so you might have to have unique agreements for every 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.440 single publisher, and then you'd have to figure out how 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.480 those economics work, and that in itself is a huge challenge. 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.680 It's not an insurmountable one, mind you, but definitely a 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.560 tough one to solve. So this announced console, which Infinium 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.600 Labs named the Phantom, and there were no end of 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.680 articles online that pointed out how apt that name would 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:43.640 turn out to be. It never materialized beyond some questionable 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.720 prototypes that may or may not have had working components 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.800 in them, and it's no big surprise as the idea, 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.240 while intriguing, was way ahead of its time. The Phantom 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.400 became the subject of a lot of skepticism and investigation. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.760 If you do a search for stories about the Phantom 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.240 and Infinium Labs, you're likely to find posts about how 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.919 the address listed for the company led to what appeared 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.879 to be unoccupied office space. There are accusations that the 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.119 founder and various executives at the company were running a scam, 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.320 and that the prototype devices the company showed off were 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:19.440 dummy devices or other computers disguised as a Phantom console. 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.600 I don't know if the whole thing actually was a 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.000 scam from the start, or if this was one of 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.800 those situations where everyone started off with a sincere goal 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.960 too really achieved this and it just proved to be unattainable. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.520 So the Phantom kind of falls in the same similar 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.159 category as therein nos. Perhaps the worst part of what 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.720 went on with the Phantom is that it led people 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.000 to doubt the viability of a similar service later down 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.760 the road, which would make it harder for companies to 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.040 establish a user base and revenue model. Even as we 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:55.320 saw high speed, low latency solutions rolling out to larger populations, 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.639 the story of the Phantom haunted those who hoped to 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.440 provide online game gaming services. When we come back, i'll 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.520 talk about another attempt to make an online gaming company 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.359 that fell through, and we'll look at what Google hopes 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.560 to do differently. But first let's take a quick break. 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.720 A few years after the Phantom debacle, there was a 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.320 service called on Live Gaming on Live as I'm sure 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.200 you all know, as a portmanteau of online and live, 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:33.119 something I only just realized as I started taking notes 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.200 this time, not that I had never heard of it before. 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.000 I had heard of it, I just didn't put it 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:44.360 together because I'm dense and slow. But on Live, despite 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:48.320 existing and technically working, would have its own share of 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.520 controversy over the years. Now. The company was founded in 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.119 two thousand nine, and it aimed to create a cloud 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.760 gaming service in which people would rent access to game 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.920 titles without having to download and installed them. So while 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.159 the Phantom may or may not have been intended to 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.840 do this, online definitely was. You played the games through 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.080 a portal service on computers and mobile devices, or through 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.960 a dedicated console system called the on Live game system. 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.840 Unlike the Phantom, this was something that actually existed as 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.480 a consumer product, and with broadband adoption being much further 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.359 along in the old days of two thousand four, it 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.639 actually had perhaps a fighting chance. The founder of on 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.399 Live was Steve Perlman, who had been responsible for some 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.119 pretty big products in the past, like web TV and 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.760 quick Time. He introduced the service in two thousand nine 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.800 at the Game Developers Conference. He explained that his system 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.040 would allow gamers to play brand new titles at top 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:52.080 settings without needing all the local hardware. One of the 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.840 big elements that made it possible was a video compression strategy. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.840 On the server side, algorithms would compress outgoing video st 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.920 teams to players. Software either on the player's computer or 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.399 mobile device or on an online console, would decompress the 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.159 video on the other end. There were some latency issues, 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.920 but the thing that really killed on Live was that 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:18.159 players just never really joined up. According to the Verge 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:23.920 at its peak on Live only saw concurrent players, which 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.760 meant all the money the company had spent on server 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.520 farms was wasted, as most of its servers were dormant 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.680 most of the time. The company was reportedly burning through 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.960 five million dollars every month toward the end. The company's 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.520 business model allowed users to demo games for free, so 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:43.680 you could play like a demo level of a game, 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.120 or you could purchase the rights to play a specific title, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.000 but very few people were doing more than just testing 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.480 out games, and Online couldn't reach deals with several of 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:57.600 the top tier video game publishers, so it's library was limited. 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.080 On top of all that, game companies demanded that Online 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.640 offer their titles at the same price you would find 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.080 on other stores, including those that allow you to actually 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.880 download a copy of the game to your own machine, 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:12.840 and the quality of the experience largely depended upon the 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.679 broadband connection of the user. So, in other words, if 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.160 you're a gamer and you're told, well, you can buy 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.040 a copy of this brand new game, it's gonna cost 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.560 you sixty dollars if you want to download it to 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.960 your computer where it will run on your hardware at 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.120 the top level of your hardware's capabilities, or you could 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.320 spend that same sixty dollars to run on this streaming 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:39.320 service and potentially have a less satisfying experience. Well, that's 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:43.359 not much of a sales pitch. Meanwhile, a competing service 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.520 called guy Kai g a i k Ai was meeting 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.960 with more success, in large part because Geikai only offered 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.920 limited playable demos of games. It didn't represent a threat 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:57.879 to the video game companies or retail businesses because they 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.160 didn't sell games. And moreover, the founder of gei Kai 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.000 was David Perry, who had a history in the video 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:08.720 game industry, while Pearlman didn't, and Pearlman over it on 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.680 Live really didn't like the guy Kai was making headway, 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.600 and eventually he started to demand Onlve not support games 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.160 that had found their way onto gei Kai, which further 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:23.800 limited on Live's library. Ultimately, on Live just couldn't make 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:26.600 the business work. The company burned through its investment money, 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:30.800 and in twelve Pearlman gathered staff together, said the company 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.800 was folding, laid off everyone without severance, and then formed 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:37.800 a new company that bought the assets of the old 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.760 company and hired on a skeleton crew to run things 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.920 which that burned some bridges. Sony would ultimately come along 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:50.639 and scoop up on Live's assets, shutting it down in Sony, 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:55.119 by the way, also acquired guy Kai three years before that. Today, 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.440 besides the Xbox and PlayStation streaming video game services that 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.360 I've already you mentioned, there are a few more out there, 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.359 like steamlink In, video Game stream and about a dozen 0:23:06.440 --> 0:23:09.920 other ones. So there's a big push still for making 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:13.240 streaming video games a thing. And these are not all, 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:16.920 you know, apples to apples. They have different features and 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:21.159 different limitations. However, most of these services, not all, but 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.520 most of them are connected to established gaming platforms. Steam 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.359 is Valves online store and is a major part of 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:32.240 the computer game market. Xbox and PlayStation are obviously well 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:37.040 established consoles, and cloud gaming is an enhancing feature for 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.480 those systems, but it's not the defining feature, at least 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:43.080 not yet. So while there are a lot of cloud 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:46.760 gaming services out there, many of them are extensions of 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:50.440 already established brands in the gaming world. But let's get 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:56.480 into Google's product stadia. Around Google team members began to 0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:00.200 explore the potential of developing their own cloud gaming and 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.200 streaming service. Now the company had already launched a streaming 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:09.320 product called chrome Cast. In chrome Cast is a device 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:12.760 that connects to television's via an hd M I plug, 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:17.320