The Nintendo Switch in Japan offers a peek at the cloud gaming future
The hype has risen and fallen for cloud gaming a few times in the past, but it’s never been hotter than right now. Google’s announcement of its Stadia platform is the strongest statement of intent yet from a company with the resources to be a major player, while Microsoft’s xCloud service is set to be revealed soon.
The usual questions over bandwidth requirements and business models remain, of course. Google isn’t telling anyone what or how you’ll pay for games on Stadia. Many people still prefer to buy physical games over digital downloads, too, even if they’re lucky enough for internet speeds or caps not to be an issue. And particularly in the United States, with its huge landmass and distributed population, poor internet connectivity…
