Video game streaming is gaining traction these days and the latest company to announce their own video game streaming service is Verizon dubbed Verizon Gaming.
This announcement comes after recently many other non-video game companies such as Amazon and Google announced their own video game streaming services. Early video game streaming service providers were companies that were directly related to the industry such as Microsoft, Sony and Electronic Arts.
Verizon Gaming was revealed by The Verge and in their report, they mentioned that Verizon is already testing out the service on Nvidia Shield device. It is still in early Alpha and the first target for the gaming service is the Android platform.
Looks like Verizon Gaming service wants to take a different approach and wants to bring mainstream video games to mobile devices as well. With streaming, you do not require hefty hardware as the title is running on the servers and the game is only displayed on the device where the stream is being played.
Verizon Gaming is reportedly testing 135 games at this point which include Fortnite, God of War, Battlefield V and Red Dead Redemption II. The library looks pretty solid and if Verizon Gaming can indeed bring these games to mobile devices, this will be a big achievement for them. At this point, the main focus of alpha testing is to make the service as smooth as possible.
Nearly all major companies are jumping in video game streaming these days because it is becoming a very lucrative market segment. Players can simply subscribe to the service and pay a monthly fees and play as many games as they want without the hassle of purchasing separate games at full prices.
The biggest advantage is yet again the elimination of expensive hardware from the equation. With streaming, you can run extremely heavy games or lower end devices easily because the games are basically run on the main server where PCs are handling all the processing and game loading. The end user device is simply displaying the game like it does with an online video or movie.
Google is also in the testing phase of its own game streaming service via Google’s Chrome browser and it started its program last year where it was inviting players to try out Assassin’s Creed Odyssey on its streaming service. The only problem players might face with video game streaming is a solid internet connection.
Internet Connection is only good in developed countries and in many developing countries, the internet speed varies a lot and players are unable to get a stable connection which can make game streaming a lot difficult in their countries. This is also one of the main reason why mainstream consoles and physical games will not die out easily.
At this point, no further details are known about Verizon Gaming. Verizon will release more details about its launch and the pricing structure later in the future once it is ready to roll out the service to the general public. They might even run some practice beta phases before launch so we will be able to test it out if it happens.
What are your thoughts about video game streaming going mainstream and Verizon launching its own streaming service? Let us know in the comments section below.
