Video streaming cloud gaming, what's the point..?

[BdR]

There is a lot of talk about cloud gaming these days but I've never really understood the need for streaming video gaming. I mean I can understand that cloud computing can facilitate a bigger multiplayer online world for games like World Of Warcraft and Minecraft etc. but what's the point of playing a game like Street Fighter IV through streaming video gaming?

Video streaming cloud gaming are services where you have a thin client, the player uploads their controller input in real-time and all the computation and video rendering takes place in the cloud (aka large bulking datacenters) which is then streamed back to the player. There are announcements of tech companies like OneLive and NVidea that cloud gaming is the future of gaming, and that it can provide "increased graphics quality without the need for expensive hardware"?

I'm just wondering, doesn't that introduce a lot of overhead and complications just for slightly better graphics? There's lots of potential for input lag, video lag, video compression artifacts etc. Also, call me old fashioned but how much more realistic do the graphics need to be, and how much more cheaper can the hardware get? The PS3 and Xbox 360 already deliver some pretty damn good looking graphics. I haven't seen much of the PS4/XBOXONE yet but I can only assume it's even better.

It seems to me that the real advantage is economic reasons for publishers and developers, i.e. it's easier to monetise through payed licensees instead of a single upfront payment for a game. Players could buy a monthly subscribtion to a cloud service or something like that, instead of just paying for a game once. But then what is the advantage for players?

Any thoughts on this?

[Ike]

Ostensibly the idea is so that you as the consumer don't have to constantly buy and upgrade hardware to be able to enjoy a game. Instead, you would only have to purchase a considerably cheaper video streaming and controller input device to hook up to your TV or whatever, and then you would still be able to enjoy games that can be played on hardware that can deliver the optimum specs without having to invest in upgrading a PC or console, since many players lack the knowledge or capability of doing that. It's less a matter of playing with The Best Graphics and more a matter of being able to play the game at all - I know I avoid a lot of PC gaming because my PC isn't exactly beefy and I prefer consoles, personally. This also would (probably) effectively eliminate cheating, since all of the computations for the game are done server-side and all you're seeing is a video feed of it. But like you said, the majority of advantage lies with the publisher, because it's likely we'd see something in the vein of a Netflix business model where some games are only available part of the time, licenses and rights will expire and games will be removed and added to reflect that, etc.