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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 4:52 PM

Can Vietnam leverage its COVID-19 success for economic growth?

While the entire world is battling with COVID-19, Vietnam, in a country of over 100 million recorded just 330 cases as of early June 2020 and zero death in May 2020.

A professor at Nagasaki University’s Institute of Tropical Medicine Vietnam Research Station said that "Vietnam has no special test kits or drugs to treat the disease, but the government decided to do what it had to do at an early stage and put that plan straight into practice."

Vietnam was quick in its action. As soon as the first case was confirmed, the government had called upon measures for serious quarantine, implemented strict border control measures, and curbed unnecessary local movement. Close to a million people were isolated to halt the spread of further infections.

The strict measures helped Vietnam to quickly control the COVID situation and put the focus back on the economy. The mainstay of Vietnam's economy, garment export and tourism witnessed steep fall resulting in loss of employment to over 3.5 million people in the first half of 2020. Still Vietnam’s economy has expanded by 0.36% over last year in the same period unlike other countries in the region where it contracted as compared to last year. The annual GDP growth for Vietnam in 2020 is expected to be around 2.7% to 3% which again is the best in the region.

Vietnam , today is the safest country in the region to travel, work, or stay amidst the worldwide COVID pandemic. It is being favourably considered as an alternative destination by many companies who are looking to cut down their reliance on China in their supply chain.  The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the European Union and Vietnam which will be operational in August, may help Vietnam grow its exports.

Apart from export led growth, the tourism sector may also grow significantly as the other major tourist destinations in the region, Singapore and Thailand, are still battling with the pandemic, while Vietnam has successfully overcome the same.

The government is also looking to support the local business by slashing the corporate income tax to 30 percent which increased the liquidity for some sectors of economy. Special tax benefits and deferred tax payments(in some cases) are also in  line for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which constitutes almost 97% of all the businesses in Vietnam. All these measures are expected to lead to a 7% GDP growth for Vietnam in 2021.

The miraculous recovery from the pandemic, government incentives to industry, and the willingness of many companies to relocate from China present such a perfect mix of opportunities for Vietnam to leap ahead and become the fastest-growing economies in SouthAsia. What remains is to see how fast and how effectively the country is able to act while this window of opportunity is open.

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