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Saturday, August 22, 2020

Will Cloud Gaming take over the video gaming world?

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Mohammad Abdullah
Mohammad Abdullah
Global

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Article Contributor(s)

Mohammad Abdullah

Article Title

Will Cloud Gaming take over the video gaming world?

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Global Views 360

Publication Date

August 22, 2020

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A person engaged in PC Gaming

A person engaged in PC Gaming |Source: Florian Olivo via Unsplash

Video gaming has evolved massively over the years with much better graphics, great storyline, and breathtaking visuals. The fun began with the 8-bit games Super Mario Bros and Contra and later by the arrival of PlayStation. In the 2000s, classics like GTA San Andreas and Portal came which were followed by Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, and GTA V.  Now with gaming competitions, eSports, and their likes, gaming has come a long way.

A still from Need For Speed | Source: Electronic Arts

Video gaming have now evolved in multiple genres like racing (Need for Speed), Parkour style (Assassin’s Creed), FPS shooters (Call of Duty and Halo), Horror (Resident Evil series), or Sports games like FIFA. The spread of video games can be gauged by the fact that the highest Football governing body FIFA is backing the FIFA series video games. Game Streaming has gone professional now, professional footballers like Sergio Aguero or current F1 drivers like Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc becoming the online gaming hero.

With the advent of cloud gaming, the industry is now at the cusp of its most radical change. Cloud Gaming aims to provide high-end gaming experience without the super expensive PC hardware which were needed earlier. A gamer now needs just a simple low-end PC or even a smartphone to enjoy high end gaming.

Google has taken the lead in cloud gaming service by launching “Stadia'', followed by Nvidia with “GeForce Now”. Microsoft, which is one of the heavy-hitters of console gaming via their Xbox series, is shortly launching their cloud gaming service xCloud for Android in 22 countries. So anyone with an Android phone and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, can enjoy the high quality online games on their smartphone.

Google Stadia Booth at Game Developers Conference 2019 | Source: Official GDC via Flickr

Cloud gaming comes with many advantages, the biggest of these is that there is no need to download a huge amount of data for running these games. Most games nowadays come with a download size exceeding 50 GB while some like Call of Duty: Warzone and Red Dead Redemption 2 even require around 100 GB download. Then there comes all the DLCs, patches which again need huge chunks of data. Cloud gaming eliminates it.

NVIDIA Titan RTX |Source: Nvidia

The second advantage is that the above-mentioned games can even run on an Android device. Also, don’t be concerned about the quality of resolution of these cloud-run games. Google Stadia can run games at 4K resolution at 60fps, which is even the limit of the current-gen consoles. They claim to further expand it to 8K at 120fps in the future, which is a quality that the best current Graphics card, the Nvidia Titan RTX hasn’t even reached.

However, with all the advantages, cloud gaming still has some basic shortcomings. The first one among them is the requirement of very high data bandwidth. The idea of playing games at 4K@60fps may seem fascinating, but that will need a steady high-speed bandwidth. For instance, Stadia lists that one needs at least 35 Mbps connection to accomplish the said frame rate and resolution.

The second bottleneck of cloud gaming is that it requires huge amounts of data to run games at such high quality. However the main reason inhibiting its wider adoption is the high cost associated with cloud gaming. For instance, Stadia costs $9.99/month, but it only comes with some select games available for free. Many other games like Assassin’s Creed series are available at Stadia, but these are to be purchased separately and at a price almost on par with the PC and Console version of the game. These shortcomings make one wonder if they are paying a much larger amount of money compared to if they purchased a gaming PC or console.

The world entering the age of 5G internet can be a catalyst to the growth of cloud gaming across the world. It can surely challenge the upcoming next-gen consoles, the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 soon. Microsoft’s approach with its xCloud service looks to be going in sync with its PC and Xbox ecosystem. It will indeed be helpful to the gaming industry in the longer run.

So, the big question arises, can Cloud gaming take over the video gaming world? For the present, the answer is a clear NO! In the future, perhaps.

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February 4, 2021 5:10 PM

Why the people are protesting in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China located on the Eastern Pearl River Delta of the South China Sea. From 1842 to 1997, the region was under the control of the Britishers.

In 1997 the  sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred to China with the principle of “one country, two systems” which provided some degree of autonomy for Hong Kong. This system was supposed to be in force for a period of minimum fifty years from 1997 to 2047. However, under President Xi Jinping, China has been aggressively making such rules and regulations which increase the influence of mainland China on administration of Hong Kong.

In June 2020, China started implementing a new national security law for which potentially severely limits the independence of the judiciary of Hong Kong. Under the proposed law, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, who is answerable to Beijing, gets the power to appoint judges for specific security cases. It also calls for setting up a security agency in Hong Kong to resolve existing conflicts and challenges faced by Beijing with respect to Hong Kong.

China defended the law by citing that it would prevent and punish secession, subversion as well as foreign infiltration. Beijing has argued that these three factors are responsible for fuelling unrest in the city since last year. Critics however have very different opinions regarding the law. For them this law directly attacks the relative autonomy granted to Hong Kong after Britain handed it back to China in 1997.

The law can potentially be employed to target anti-government protests and other forms of dissent in the region of Hong Kong. It has instilled fear in the minds of the Hong Kong residents that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to curb the freedom of speech and protest in the region in an effort to bring Hong Kong under its authoritarian rule.

Many protesters are of the belief that the local governments of Hong Kong are no longer autonomous and act on the whims of Beijing. They accuse the city's top leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who is appointed by Beijing, of acting only in the interest of mainland China while ignoring to safeguard the autonomy of Hong Kong.

The protests Hong Kong witnessed in May 2020, were quite similar to the ones the city witnessed almost a year ago when China proposed an extradition law for Hong Kong. The law was eventually scrapped after a flurry of protests. However the protest against the territory’s existing leadership turned into a protest against Chinese ruling party’s efforts to merge Hong Kong with mainland China.

At its core, the protest movement is aimed at protecting Hong Kong’s autonomy and resisting encroachment from the mainland. However, China’s adamant approach in bringing Hong Kong under the mainland amidst a falling economy and rising agitation and police brutality has had a negative impact on the residents.

Many Hong Kong protesters have started moving to countries who are willing to adopt them over fears of being under scrutiny from the Chinese government. Many of the skilled workers are now looking at ways to exit the city and move to better alternatives. More than half of the people from the age group of 18 to 24 are considering options outside of Hong Kong owing to the uncertainty surrounding the region’s fate.

Despite the protest by citizens and condemnation and actions by the US, Britain and other Western countries, it seems unlikely that China is going to halt its efforts to dismantle the autonomy of Hong Kong and effectively merge it with the mainland China.

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