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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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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 4:41 PM

How COVID-19 helped Netanyahu beat Benny Gantz for Israeli prime ministership

In March 2020, when COVID-19 was causing the near collapse of health systems across the world, Israel had just voted third time in the parliamentary election for the third time in less than a year. This was so because no political party was able to muster the majority in Knesset (Israeli parliament) after earlier elections in April 2019 and Sept 2019. Benjamin Netanyahu has been acting Prime minister since the time when he went for the dissolution of Knesset December 2018 with a hope of securing an extended majority for his right wing coalition. However he failed to secure even the simple majority in three elections on April 19, Sept 19, and March 20. Then came the COVID-19 and he sensed an opportunity to make a comeback from the brink of political disaster to reclaim the prime ministership of Israel.

The COVID-19 pandemic tested the Israeli citizens just like the other countries and  Benjamin Netanyahu kept on telling that unless it is effectively controlled, there will be devastation not seen since the Middle Ages. He also stressed that even the First world countries such as the US and UK are at the brink of losing control. Many Israelis expressed admiration towards Netanyahu’s quick response to the pandemic which helped to contain the pandemic in earlier stages. They flattened their curve by shutting down public places such as parks, schools, educational institutions, and the hotspot areas. He followed two stage strategies — first, to locate and isolate the infected population and then to engage the healthy population in economic activities during the conditions of a semi-lockdown. These steps were taken to save the economy. His plan also carried a huge amount of tests in the hope that it could be established that some people were developing antibodies to resist the virus and could safely be “freed” from isolation. Although the steps being acknowledged, they still raised a lot of questions against Netanyahu. He was supposed to be facing charges for breach of trust and bribery in the month of March. The court shutdown ordered by Israeli Law minister delayed Netanyahu’s charges by two months. Israel also used the cell phone of citizens to monitor their movement to track the spread of pandemic for which he was criticised for breaching the citizen’s privacy. Yohanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute said that Israelis trust the Shin Bet to protect them and not to abuse that trust, and the cellphone monitoring may have serious long-term effects on that trust. Netanyahu, however, defended himself with usual combativeness by stating that the courts were under a temporary shutdown and he has received permission from the General Attorney for cellphone usage data which was valid for 14 days. He also said “If the Shin Bet is to

infringe on our basic privacy, they could have done it many years ago”.

After managing to convince the citizens that he had handled the COVID-19 situation effectively, he quickly approached the rival Benny Gantz with a proposal to form an “emergency unity government”. As part of the deal he offered to share the power with Gantz’s Blue and White party for three years during which Netanyahu was to be prime minister and Benny Gants Dy prime minister for the first 18 months and the role reversal afterwards. He kept on harping the disastrous consequences of the virus and mentioned “It could affect 60-80% of the population” and said “nobody knows” how devastating the virus would ultimately prove. 

It was not easy for Benny Gantz to accept the proposal to align with Netanyahu as his whole campaign was on the issue of never supporting Netanyahu. However Netanyahu, who is acknowledged by friends and foes alike as a shrewd politician willing to go to any extent in safeguarding his own interest, finally won the war of attrition. Benny Gantz accepted the deal offered by Netanyahu and agreed to let him continue to be the prime minister for the first 18 months of the alliance period. The COVID-19 calamity has effectively turned into an opportunity for Netanyahu to hold on to the power and continue to be the prime minister of Israel.

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