Cloud Gaming: Is it really the Future of Gaming?

Most games today are downloaded and played locally on PCs, smartphones, and gaming consoles. Though to support player accounts, social affordances and in-game purchases internet is required, but the games themselves run on players’ devices.

With cloud gaming, a game lives entirely in data centers and delivery networks, thus eliminating the need for downloads. Cloud gaming services are leveraging hyperscale cloud capabilities, global CDNs, and streaming media services to build the platforms of next generation for immersive, interactive, and social entertainment.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service

IaaS is essentially the backbone of the cloud, allowing providers to scale their platforms for new applications and expand existing ones to larger audiences. Having solid infrastructure is important, considering a constant surge of new content in the gaming industry.

Content Delivery Network

CDN software helps route the delivery of digital content from the origin server to one that is as close to the end-user as possible. This enables an efficient and reliable content delivery, which is important since real-time feedback is necessary for gaming.

Load Balancing Software

Another technology associated with cloud gaming includes load balancing software, which helps distribute resources to handle large amounts of traffic. This is significant in cloud gaming since fluctuating volumes of traffic aren’t uncommon.

The result of these technologies leads to a flawless gaming experience for the end-user. High-definition, resource-intensive gaming content delivered at 60 fps on virtually any device is one of the many reasons why the cloud gaming market is expected to rise over the next few years.

Cloud gaming is growing and is expected to reach vast audiences over the next few years. Its ease-of-use paired with high-end gaming experiences for users with hardware or device limitations makes cloud gaming attractive, but is it really the future of gaming? When it will mature and who will own what across the value chain is yet to be seen.