Netbooks Will Push Games to the Cloud

Netbooks are a recent and significant innovation. Basically they are very small notebook computers with stripped down capabilities that are optimised for connectivity. They all have wi fi and some have bluetooth and some have 3G cellphone capabilities. They have two massive advantages. The first is that they are very portable, around 1Kg (2 pounds) is the norm. The second is that they are very cheap. About half the cost of a notebook. And they are going to become a lot cheaper.

Netbooks work with the cloud. You use online applications like Google Mail and Google Documents. So you don’t even need a hard drive, which is why many netbooks don’t have one. It also means that this incredibly portable device can be taken all over the world yet has the power, via the cloud, to do all the proper computing tasks you would want.

So netbooks are going to become massive. Dell (DELL) and Acer said they wouldn’t get into this market. But when they saw where it was going they quickly changed their minds. These machines work very well with a version of Linux called Ubuntu and this has just been made available for the ARM processor. ARM/Ubuntu machines have the potential to be cheaper than Intel/Windows machines which will drive prices down even further. $100 is not an impossible end user price.

So netbooks will almost certainly become the most popular PCs. And PC gaming is already far bigger than all console gaming put together. So netbooks are headed towards being one of the most important gaming machines on earth. And this has a significant impact on the future of gaming.

Netbooks have reduced storage and processing capabilities. They cannot store and run big and complex games internally. They make up for this by having brilliant connectivity. So they are the perfect tool for playing online games such as MMOs and the contents of all the casual gaming portals. They are going to have an immense effect on pushing gaming onto servers. Boxed retail games are not what netbooks are about.

This is another arrow in the back of high street game retail. And another major factor into making gaming an online industry. So it will help force social networking and gaming closer together. Portals like Steam need to evolve to become more server based but they are agile enough to do so. It will not be a revolution, more like speeded up evolution.

As ever in the gaming industry we live in interesting times.

Comments

[dnice:]

Sorry but this makes little sense. First off PC games are far from popularity of console games and they surely are not the future of gameing. Simply look at the amount of store space given to consoles vs. pc games. Second PC games require expensive hardware to play which flies in the face of this idea that netbooks are going to be cheap. $100 dollars? Not with the video card that costs $400. Even with mmos you need the power to display the images even if they are in a cloud. Another thing it runs on linux an ubuntu. Sorry that's not mainstream and it's not scaring any of the major players. Hey social networking and gaming are already together on services like xbox live and social networking is trendy. It's already fading away. I know few people who use myspace or facebook like they used too. As for an arrow in the back. Looks to me like this is more like an flimsy twig breaking in two on impact and not even leaving a scratch.

2008 Nov 24 04:03 PM

[kamm:]

Bruce,

I am not sure how well-versed you are in gaming but I doubt you clearly understand the requirements of *ANY* modern game, even in lower resolution and the compromises these dirt cheap netbooks enforce on the manufacturers.
HINT: I have a netbook and I would never try to play any of my games on it because it's simply incapable unless I turn everything off and choose VGA or lower resolution, essentially killing the experience.

The only new market could be some netbook-optimized gaming but I highly doubt that after PSP, DS, iPod, iPhone, N-Gage, Windows Mobile etc any developer would want to risk a single cent on porting their game to -yet-another-crippled-...

2008 Nov 25 12:47 PM

[kamm:]

On Nov 24 04:03 PM dnice wrote:

> Sorry but this makes little sense. First off PC games are far from
> popularity of console games and they surely are not the future of
> gameing.

Nonsense. Consoles might sell more but PC games always had and still have an edge when it comes to new game genres, new graphics, inventions in gaming etc.

In other words without PC as the #1 game *inventor* platform console gaming would be an utter crap.
Also there are several types of gmaes that are either simply laughably simplified on consoles (stupid controllers, anyone?) or doesn't even exist at all (stupid controllers, anyone?).

Anything that sets new standards in game graphics always arrive on PC.
In fact PC is *THE* standard, consoles rather just copy it and provide a more streamlined - thus more cost effective - development pipeline.


> Simply look at the amount of store space given to consoles
> vs. pc games.

Ehh? PCs have a MAGNITUDE MORE space than consoles, you're not making sense, I'm afraid.

> Second PC games require expensive hardware to play
> which flies in the face of this idea that netbooks are going to be
> cheap. $100 dollars? Not with the video card that costs $400. Even
> with mmos you need the power to display the images even if they are
> in a cloud.

Even though your numbers are way off - the sub-$200 Radeon 4850 is the "affordable & powerful" poster child of the PC VGA market for months now - the final conclusion is correct, indeed.

> Another thing it runs on linux an ubuntu. Sorry that's
> not mainstream and it's not scaring any of the major players. Hey
> social networking and gaming are already together on services like
> xbox live and social networking is trendy. It's already fading away.
> I know few people who use myspace or facebook like they used too.
> As for an arrow in the back. Looks to me like this is more like an
> flimsy twig breaking in two on impact and not even leaving a scratch.

I agree, social gaming is sort of an oxymoron for me too: the only people into constant Twittering etc I know are those way beyond your typical gaming age - they never be hooked on any game, that's for sure.

2008 Nov 25 01:28 PM

[Blaless:]

It is nonsense that no games run on netbooks. I am working at a game development company which focuses to make games which even run on low end pc's. In the office we have a laptop which is more than 5 years old, just to test our games on. The current netbooks have system specs which are better in every way.

The games we make are action packed 3D games.

Interested? Go have a look at;
www.kalydo.com

Mark Schroders,
Technical Director
Eximion

2008 Dec 09 05:44 AM

[s4ndm4n:]

Funny, this is an old article but since I've JUST gotten my wife a netbook this Christmas and we are waiting for it.. I am looking up what games we could play on it, but all this knowing deep inside that most of the games that aren't super cutting edge will probably work. I read the article but didn't weed through ALL of the comments so please ignore what I repeat.

First off, just thought I'd add - this article is good, and its true that netbooks are going to have a great impact on the computing industry. Gaming? yes, that too but to what extent, I wouldn't venture to say I even can predict. Most predictions about technology is hit and miss. We just don't know! But yes I agree it is possible that the netbooks may push games to the "cloud". We first thought about the netbooks for our kids - 8 and 7 yrs old. They love games that will play beautifully on the netbooks. But then my wife decided she likes them too, so that's that!

The netbooks since this article may have changed, but lets get down to what ours will be -- we ordered an MSI Wind which, of all the netbooks comes with a 10.1" screen rather than 8.9 for the same price. Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz CPU, 1 GB memory, Intel® GMA950 graphics, and 120 gb hard drive.

Honestly? Aside from being unsure of the graphics card, as I haven't looked into it... This baby will play many of the games out there today-- again, not the super cutting edge ones like crysis, bioshock.. or what not.. Many of the newer mmos take into account lower end machines since they want a large following.. so i'm inclined to think they'll work too.

just my 2 cents! (or 10)

2008 Dec 29 12:48 PM

[pabloplex:]

If a time traveller saw a netbook three years ago they would think it was state of the art. All it is is a laptop without the CD drive and a smaller hard-drive. They still run at 1GHz and can have 1Gb RAM and run DirectX 9 graphics. Though some games are not designed to run on that size screen (1024x600) but some are. I particularly enjoy playing "Help! Aliens!" (marjupi.com) It works fantastically well on my ACER netbook even though it requires DirectX 9 graphics!!!

I love playing games on my netbook. So I think the future of games is to make them smaller to download. Not many people want to spend a few hours downloading 8GB worth of PC game!!!!

May 21 10:09 AM