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Originally Posted by Nisses
Who in their right mind would set up a center with such an incredible need for power as what they are suggesting here?
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Those who can find a market, naturally. Server-side gaming would open up an already large gaming market. The barrier to gaming for many people, especially with top-of-the-line games, is the hardware requirements. If you could eliminate this need for your end user, you suddenly have fewer barriers of entry for those who'd otherwise spend money on it. Personally, I'd pay as much as $50 to $100 a month (more, if I could see the benefits) for access to a gaming environment if it didn't require me to have more than a computer that can run high-quality video and high-bandwidth Internet transfers. And I don't think I'm alone on that. There are likely millions who think the same. Now tell me, how expensive do you think it is to maintain a cable network for a large cable company? How much do they charge their end users for access? I'm telling you, this is akin to what the television industry went through. And think of films. All of their content and "magic" is "server-side." They don't require each of their end user to find a Brad Pitt and a set and have him do the actions. The end user for the film industry does not have to do the work of a production company. Why not the same for gaming? If technology isn't a barrier, then neither should marketability be.
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It would take years and years to pay off, with rising energy costs as they are, you might not ever break even.
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Do you realize how much energy is being used by individual machines to do the work of what a server could do more efficiently? I don't doubt there is a potential market for this.
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And all this for just ONE application?
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Why not?
Spiderman 3 had a $258 million budget, and that was just ONE film. The key is to make enough money on subscriptions, etc. (or, in the film's case, movie tickets, DVDs, etc).
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This is not a question of possibility or theoretical feasibility, but more a question of WHY would you do this?
A game does not have an endless lifespan. And the next game will require more performant processors, more GPU power and more datatraffic, making your hardware only minimally suited for 'recycling'.
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Games aren't meant to have an endless lifespan, as we know. Each game would need to be approached like a business. Effective business models account for all the factors that need to be taken into account to ensure a profit is made. When a studio approves a film, I'm sure they think this way. After all, $258 million is $258 million.
To run something like Google, it is
estimated that 6,000 processors and 12,000 IDE disks are employed. Now tell me, what in hell makes it feasible for a company like Google to invest in that kind of hardware when they don't charge a cent for the end user to access their most popular feature, the search engine? The answer is quite simple, really, it's the monetization of information. If you can monetize something as vague as "information." Why could you not monetize the delivery of server-side gaming? Take both the television industry and Google into account when you consider how long it would take to find a market for this kind of thing.
It isn't the question of number of years; it's a question of number of brilliant ideas. It's just a matter of time. But, again, I don't think something like this would need to take 40 years.