Is Switch Cloud Gaming Any Good? Kingdom Hearts 3, Hitman 3, Control, Guardians + More Tested!
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- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2024
- A handful of Switch games only run over the cloud - streamed to Nintendo's console from a server many miles away. It's a solution to getting games like Kingdom Hearts 3 or Control running on mobile hardware, where in Control's case features like ray-tracing are enabled. Is the experience good enough though? Latency, image quality and settings are picked apart by John and Tom here - and the result is far from ideal.
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Tom does good work. I wish he was on more DF Directs
🤣
Toms also an OG, we see a lot of Alex and John and they are not DF OG's.
Tom is solid
But then he'd have less time to do good work! I think it's a good balance
i feel like tom is too good a writer to enjoy the videos or get enough time to do em
definitely an OG tho
The problem with cloud gaming on switch is that the switch has a bad wifi receiver that isn't optimal for cloud gaming. Another problem is that you're paying full price for a game you can only keep for a limited amount of time, you're basically paying full price to rent the game.
Even Ethernet speeds are rather slow
@@brandon_nope I honestly thought I got a bad dongle, I have 400mbps and the thing struggles to get 50 with the USB and 20 with the WIFI....
Regardless of your internet speed supported by your Switch -- cable or not (unless you don't reach the MVV), Square's server and the compression systems as well aren't that capable. I had a stable experience, but the image is pretty bad, even on only 1080p panels.
In my opinion, it is worth waiting to play this. Play on another system.
My Switch works with WiFi just fine, as long as I dont stay further away from my router than an arms length. 😂 I dont get any connection at all after distance of 2 meters, worst WiFi on ANY device I've ever seen. Any fkin 2$ WiFi dongle has much better connection
And so, I use LAN adapter, but Smash is still unplayable because of worst netcode... :/ Sad Switch owner, fck Greedtendo, fck how they treat addicts and focus 100% on casuals and how to make money.
I just bought a good gaming PC instead, in combination with 240hz monitor, simply the best decision of my life, even tho it has the price of 5 Switches.
The issue with this, for me, is... why would I want to be locked to a single platform with a cloud game? Seems to me I should have the ability to play this on my chromebook or phone/PC/others. Just like every other cloud platform. I actually like cloud gaming on Stadia and Xbox(Xbox cloud streaming) but this seems like the worst of both worlds.
That’s not how it works on iPhone/ Android phones though.
@@MegaFinalRound yes it is
@@MegaFinalRound It is if you’re playing games from a cloud service. I can play Gamepass cloud gaming-games (aka Xcloud) on my iPhone, iPad, laptop, and Xbox. As it should be.
@@MegaFinalRound There are android apps for both, and you can play via the web on Iphone... What do you mean that's not how it works?
The number of Switch consoles available is probably sufficient for this cloud gaming service. "Available for everyone" may require too many remote hardware playing the cloud games
Another huge drawback of cloud games will always be that you only "own" them as long as the servers are running. The moment they shut them down your purchase evaporates into thin air. Can't ever see myself buying something like a Kingdom Hearts 3 cloud version for 90€ when I can just order a used physical copy for like 15€ for a console and keep my purchase forever.
Yes 100% agree with this.
Even depending on the location of the servers, nothing can guarantee you'll have a decent experience in one play, and a bad one a few days or months from now. If the game usage starts dropping, the publishers might reduce server availability and you might lose access to a server closer to you, increasing latency. Or depending on the demand in your area you might just connect to a server further away.
And that's not to mention it almost kills the whole point of portable play. If you play outside of your house, you're going to require a mobile hotspot and eat data. In house, you still need to have good wifi connection. And the video quality still sucks in both cases, so if you're playing on a TV I feel sorry for you. It's a concept that is still not very viable even for PCs and home consoles, much less for people who want to play handheld.
LONG LIVE PHYSICAL GAMES!!!
Exactly my thoughs. Game streaming subscriptions, sure but not buying individual games.
Hell, even games that rely on online services suck when their server gets killed.
I played NBA 2k15 and I can't do certain upgrades because it's tied to online components. (I know it's too old but I haven't bought any NBA 2K ssince because it's been bad due to micro-transactions and such :D)
@@rodanandme but you buy it on the store, and download it to your system. its not cloud gaming because your system is what runs it. this is entirely run on a server
I remember when the first cloud-based switch game came out (japan only), i thought, “wow! That’s so cool! I hope they start bringing those to America!“
i haven’t bought a single cloud game since.
Lmao exact same thing happened for me as well😂
Yeah, we should not be satisfied with these results. Especially not given the incredible cloud performance Geforce Now displays on the Shield boxes, which have near-identical hardware characteristics compared to the Switch.
Literally identical hardware as far as I'm aware, the Nintendo Switch uses the exact same Tegra chip that shows up in the Shield.
@@dial2616 Yup! Exact same chip and architecture, the first switches literally just used leftover chips that weren't used for the shield since it did poorly :p
With geforecenow you can play God of War on xbox lol
I bought a Switch exclusively for portability reasons. Needing to stay connected to a reliable wifi is the opposite of what I need from this console, so it's a big NO from me
Good point. A PS Vita model had native 3G, shame Nintendo doesn't offer something similar.
I'm shocked that 1.5 and 2.5 are cloud gaming. They were on PS3!
Because ther didn’t want to invest the resources. Laziness
Yeah that just lazy and insulting to switch gamers to not have those be games be natively ported over to the console and relying on cloud gaming only.
Could also be because the 32GB Switch wouldn't be able to fit the amount of data those games take up locally
@@cosmosofinfinity bro witcher 3 is literally on the switch
@@cosmosofinfinity Most big third-party releases on the Switch take up more than that.
Not only did Square got the extra lazy route in going cloud versions of KH, but they also had the Gaul to charge that much?! I certainly hope this falls flat on its face.
Yeah because asking full price for a rhythm game with reused assets and story from the previous games backfired for them... KH fans dont give a shit about what they buy.
Nintendies will eat it up lol, they buy all their overpriced shit, Botw is still 70€ lol, just pirate Nintendo games i ain't pay that much for old games or games that look a decade old.
@@freshnesbro3792 Nintendo should lower the price of their older games, agreed. This is just so much worse than that. Square has a history of overcharging for all their products, and this needs to stop.
@@yagokain4189 That is true. SE and KH fans are like a cult at this point.
@@MegaBat91 Nintendo is a business. No they won't lower prices for popular products. Business doesn't work that way.
I refuse to ever pay for a cloud version of a game . That’s the most ridiculous concept ever conceived when they could just add GeForce now and such I can’t believe this is a thing
It's not for me either and can't see why it ever would be however that doesn't mean there isn't a part of the 3.5 or so billion people where cloud gaming could be a decent option. Horses for courses.
We live in the corporate world where even the stuff you buy on Steam can't be played on GFN unless the rights holders say so. It sucks seeing games constantly coming to and leaving GFN. If the publishers are THAT anal about you playing the game you boguht on a VM - what makes you think they'd be ok with a GeForce Now app for the Switch?
It's good, just too ahead of its time. Maybe give around 20 years and even developing countries might be able to run them smoothly. Hard drives are still the king as of now.
I literally just downloaded three demos to test out how well cloud gaming works while docked. This is an incredibly useful vid - thanks for making!
i would never play cloud docked style, it's always best as portable even the other's on phones as they will at least always look crisper like native than blown up on big screens and not many will even allow resolutions beyond 1080p and even if they did that's a lot of data/high speed u'll need to push for 4k and such
and what are your results ?
@@ployth9000 I’m not really picky about these things, but I remember trying out all three games and feeling that it really wasn’t worth the time or money investment. The graphics are just bad enough, resolution-wise, and there’s enough latency where it doesn’t feel great to play. This is coming from someone with a really fast, Internet speed, and my switch OLED hardwired to the router. Who knows, though, maybe the servers are better now or whatever. Might be worth checking out again, if you’re interested, via a demo.
Cloud gaming on the switch kills all purpose for me. I mainly would play first party nintendo games on my switch, especially when I stick to tv mode, and if I do pick up any third party titles, its for the sake of being able to take that game with me anywhere. When I'm able to pull out a tablet and start playing dmc3, doom, red faction guerrila, or even crysis at any given moment, especially while I was still in school, was where the switch absolutely shined for me. Being tethered to an internet connection to play some of these games is just driving home the fact that I'd just rather play the full release on a platform I own it on, and can run it natively, not to mention you have to pay for cloud games as if they were a full release
Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 can easily be ported to the switch and even 3 can be ported as a lot more demanding games have already been ported.
The issue is that theyre playing a ps3 collection (a console notorious for how hard it is to develop for), and it would take years to port a bunch of ps2 games running on ps3 code to other platforms
@@flipadoodles8677 The games have already been ported to PS4, Xbox One and PC which is a lot easier to port to Switch, but since it was released on a PS3 and ran at 1080p30 people are using that as the comparison as they'd obviously port the more modern versions which aren't that demanding anyways (whole 1.5&2.5 collection runs at 4k60 on PS4 Pro) and cap them at 30fps and it would run just fine on Switch at 720p portable and 1080p docked.
Yeah supposed to be a separate cartridge for both 1 and 2.
Switch is obviously not as powerful as a PS2. Nintendo sucks, even the PS1 was more powerful than the Switch.
Bro😭 The Switch is more powerful than the PS1
The most important thing with this tech, is the number and location of servers. Google has servers everywhere. Microsoft has more and more too. That's why they can provide lower latency and more stability. This cloud offering being ran by a company most people have never heard of quietly point towards the fact they probably don't have servers close to every major city in the world like Google and Microsoft do.
This is the underrated comment of the cloud streaming era. Basically, to have a successful cloud deployment today, you need to be a tech giant with a years in the making framework for the cloud, years in the making data center rollout, years in the making software stack. There aren’t a lot of companies on this planet that can do that folks.
Xcloud latency is worse than PS Now check out Gamers Nexus comparison
@@furry_homunculus You're comment about renting cloud servers just made me wonder if that's what they do and THAT's why it's so bad. The other streaming providers had to build custom hardware (and this is why I question if it will ever be profitable and not a loss leader) whereas now you can technically rent a cloud instance with a GPU. But unfortunately these cloud servers are really intended for compute, doing bulk operations on large datasets, not low latency gaming. If that's their secret - renting generic cloud instances worldwide - then that explains why they are the worst offering at the moment.
They're renting the servers from Amazon AWS. You can check it inspecting the traffic between the switch and the router.
@@furry_homunculus The other problem they touch on was frame pacing but I think they missed the mark on that comment. When I tried control it wasn't just poor video quality, it was poor performance too. The best way of describing it was like the system was loaded down, kind of like when windows update kicks in while you're trying to play or your anti-virus is going mad. Obviously that's not what's actually happening, just that's what it's like. It clearly *could* hit 30fps, but it was just struggling and not because of on screen action it would happen in empty areas looking at the floor. And if you're on a shared instance on AWS then they aren't really designed for timely frame rendering, more for "average" performance and that to me sounds like they are selling a limo service and using busses.
The Kingdom Hearts 1.5+2.5 cloud version just seem nonsensical to me. Apparently it was released as a cloud version due to the switch's storage limitations, which does indeed make sense until you consider the fact that Square Enix released both 1.5 and 2.5 as separate collections on the PS3, meaning that they could either sell the two as separate games, or include one on the cartridge and one as a download (similar to the Assassin's Creed Rebel Collection). As an added note, I believe the ps3 versions run at 1080p 30 fps (albeit with a slightly shaky framerate cap), but I haven't actually played those versions, so I can't verify that statement.
Remember those discs cost less for publishers to buy while Nintendo extorts companies for literal thousands over their so called propriety cartridges
Square also did exactly that with the FFX/X2 HD collection awhile back on Switch like they did for Vita if I recall correctly, One game on cartridge, other game download code, that collection was also on PS3, and FF12 Zodiac age was on PS4, no reason they couldn't have ported KH 1.5&2.5 besides money and dev time since the collections have 2-3 games each so it could take a bit longer.
@Master Shifu Most of the titles you mentioned were by themselves on a single cartridge meaning the size was smaller than what the all on in one collection file size is in total which is 112.35 gigabytes
As for Dragon Quest 11 that was reduced beforehand & it was a single title made to fit on the cartridge size
@Master Shifu No reason to pay the extortion Nintendo forces upon publishers when their so called "propriety cartridges" are bought at dollars worth from Western Digital over the thousands they sell them for
Like I said publishers will almost always go for the most cost effective solution & if that is not to spend hundreds of thousands on development time to downgrade or optimize for a port they would do so
@Master Shifu Its not that making cartridges is difficult or anything Western Digital owner of Sandisk creates them at a fraction of the cost for Nintendo its just that they sell them to publishers at absurd prices
Which is why you see so many of them prefer the cloud route since they do not have to pay licensing fees on cartridges nor waste thousands on downgrading titles to be ported
Tom: I don't want to be too critical.
John: I do.
🤣🤣🤣
First thing I think of when I see a portable handheld is "yes, I want to be chained to a single wifi connection to stream over this"
When John said "They're not good enough"...I stood and clapped. The best overall summary of cloud gaming by far. Now don't get me wrong, I love PS remote play and Steam Link but that is running off of MY OWN HARDWARE with a stable connection and its FREE.
PS remote play (on PS4 at least) is worse than every cloud gaming offering I've ever tried (except for PS Now, of course). DF's own findings on cloud gaming recently have found most of the options to be really good. "Good enough" of course is in the eye of the beholder.
I love using moonlight for local streaming. It's how half my gaming happens as a recent dad. Cloud streaming options will eventually reach the same level of fidelity. The funniest thing about the Switch is that it's the exact same hardware that the Nvidia Shield runs. If you run GeForce Now on it (which you can if you set it up for homebrew) it runs flawlessly, but Nintendo's own cloud gaming offering is just ... bad.
Hopefully it stays “not good enough” forever
@@sdFreerey W ... Why?
It's an advancement in technology. A very beneficial advancement in technology. This is like saying "I hope handhelds and laptops are never able to play games smoothly at 4k so I can feel superior"
@@mechanicalmonk2020 Yeah PS Remote is awful on PS4. It performs stellar on PS5 though. I guess since this is the future, I’ll just replay my current library over and over. Not willing to lose ownership over game purchases. I have enough games to be content for years so come. So there is a market for cloud gaming, I’m definitely not part of it. Hopefully things don’t go all cloud in the future.
@@mechanicalmonk2020 Because I like owning the stuff I pay for??
I’ve had terrible experiences with it. I have a really fast connection but it still looked like a blurry, choppy mess. This was on the Switch OLED. I tried A Plague Tale on Switch and just couldn’t do it. It honestly should be a crime to charge money for these. Thank god I have a PS5 lol.
imagine buying this games on switch instead of playing it on the chadstation.
The best use-case I've seen for this was Phantasy Star Online 2, but that was a japanese-only cloud version. That's the kind of game that makes sense to be able to log on for a minute to meet with friends and chat, or level up your gear, or manage your inventory without being at your own PC or PS4. And since PSO2 has time-limited events (Urgent Quests that run on a schedule); it makes it an easier proposition to accept. Say you're over at a friend's house and want to be able to run the Urgent Quest that just popped up with them, pull out your Switch and play the Cloud version alongside them. Or, you're at the office on your lunch break and you want to spend some time talking to friends in your Alliance and letting them know when you'll be home so you can group up. It's probably the single use-case that I can think of where performance and visual clarity matters very little, and just having access to the game in general is the entire point.
(Plus there's the idea that internet infrastructure in Japan is miles better than it is nearly anywhere else but that's neither here nor there)
All they had to do was port I.5 and II.5. That’s it. People would have been satisfied that they got a chance to play most of the games on the go. But they couldn’t even be bothered to do that.
I'll never get the version of KH1 I've always wanted :/
@@riddleiddle well the steam deck and aya neo could solve that if you wanted
I tried the Control Demo and it was fine. Shocking to hear, that the other games are way worse.
You can tell you see what you want to see and feel what you want to feel because control and the other cloud games are horrible!
Now play it on a proper console or even better, PC. You will see how different it looks and feels.
@@krzysztof6591 I love Control, finished it on PS4 and PC (high settings). Just wanted to see, how its running on Switch and while I wouldn't wont to play it that way, I can at least say it is running fine most of the time in performance mode.
@@krzysztof6591 True words! Day & Night Difference.
One of the biggest problems with cloud streaming on Switch is the console's wifi antenna. It's not comparable to those equiped to the newest XBOX or Playstation -- both of which do not offer a perfect streaming experience either.
Idk, that wifi antenna is plenty enough to have a fantastic experience with game streaming via Moonlight on a hombrew-enabled Switch.
@@swosho I have no perspective on that.
@@DeadPhoenix86DP I'd say 5 - 10 more years until it's as good as downloading is today.
@@DeadPhoenix86DP people play with input lag all the time. Zero input lag isn't even possible playing locally. Just needs to be low enough. At some point cloud latency will probably be indistinguishable from local latency as long as you have a good connection. The tech will get better and so will our internet architecture.
@@DizzyDiddy this. My thoughts as well.
It's just a massive waste of money, and it defeats the whole purpose of handheld gaming. Servers go down, and your game is gone. Also, screw Square for not simply porting Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5! Such a huge missed opportunity!
Square-Enix doing what they do best, being inept.
It also defeats the advantage that cloud gaming has which is the possibility of playing your game on almost any device. Paying so much and being to play only on Switch makes no sense at all to me. Also, why aren't games running in their max settings? What hardware are they using to run these games?
@ potato pc with mcdonalds wifi
No damn way i'm buying cloud versions. They should be tertiary, backup ways of playing if native isn't possible for some reason. If pirating is a problem of publishers not making reasonable access to the games they don't want pirated, then this makes that case for me. I'd emulate the old versions on mobile or pc before i cloud game or "rent" these kinds of games. Games i hold close to my heart. I can emulate Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 and play 3 on xbox or ps. If i want to play the cloud or streamsed console version of 3, i can do that as a backup way to play mobile.
Hate cloud gaming. It's a great concept but there's always some issue with streaming that garbles up the image even when playing on a great connection. I'll be a really late adopter to this if ever.
The biggest issue with getting cloud gaming to be viable for most people would be internet infrastructure. Especially in the US, internet infrastructure is lagging far behind and latency is really bad for most connections.
@Røyål Læg3nd that's an issue too but most average consumers don't care about that. most people just care if they are able to play the game on the Switch and if the price is affordable. And here, technically the first point is satisfied but not really. Streaming quality looks bad on a big screen and you're tethered to being close to a WiFi access point which defeats the whole idea of playing these games portably.
Only reliable version of cloud gaming is ge-force now and xcloud occasionally
@Røyål Læg3nd I do see the value of truly owning what you buy, but we live in a rent-it society. Cars are leased, houses are rented, movies are rented, and at this point, even PC gaming can be rented. This is just companies playing into the psychology that people would rather pay less today even if they end up paying more over time.
@@megamanx1291 I tried xCloud on a 100mbps connection on Ethernet and the latency was unbearable.
Cloud gaming is a scam. If you want to play games with 200ms+ latency, then sure be my guest, but it'll just give you headaches when played long enough.
Cloud gaming can at best compliment actual games on hardware, the way Xbox is doing, not replace them.
A good cloud service has latency matching local hardware just FYI…. Not 200ms+
@@Duhbyo47 How could that be? In ideal circumstances you’re at least adding tens of milliseconds to latency.
@@jamescunningham8092 Some people don't find 10s of milliseconds that bad, it's once it gets up to let's say 80-100ms that's about 5-7 frames of lag at 60fps from a button press or right around a tenth of a second, once it gets closer to half a second or a full second it's really noticeable. If you have a good monitor or tv that has pretty low latency in game mode it's probably not that bad but IMO the only ones even close to playable latency are Geforce Now and XCloud/Game Pass, which I've only tried not played more than a few minutes.
Cloud Gaming on Switch is a great idea to bring VERY demanding games to the Switch. But it's being used as an excuse by lazy studios to port their games to the platform
@George xander No one asked for your opinion either but at least he's right.
Nintendo needs new hardware.
But then when the port is so so cut down to accommodate the weak Switch hardware I bet many will complain or just don't bother at all.
Remember The Outer Worlds?
@George xander And you with that attitude do? That's surprising...
@George xander Those friends must be keyboard gangsters like you.
The whole idea of cloud is to provide access to games without the need to buy dedicated hardware, as well as give it as an added OPTION to people who can also own native versions of same games (like Xcloud).
This sh*t here is just a reason for companies to rake in cash with as little effort as possible while completely ignoring the whole purpose the Switch was built for… and setting a precedent for other devs to do the same.
I hope this cloud sh*t dies in a fire. Honestly not having a game is less damaging to the console than getting to rent access to some server for as long as the company cares.
What legacy will the console leave behind when the servers die?
Nothing.
This is the opposite. The switch isn't powerful enough to play games like hitman 3.
Actually, you don't need to buy a dedicated ps,Xbox or pc device. For that particular game if you already have a switch
Thank you for this reporting. I have enjoyed your “impossible ports” reports so much I have them all loaded on a 500GB card for some mobile “PC Gaming” on the Switch.
Tom showing his face in his vids now is the best part of this video.
He looks magnificent doesn't he
He used to do it often. Did he scale back in inversion of his hair growing out?
You should really test this kind of thing on some realistic internet connections that most people actually have. Something like 10mbit or 20mbit with a netflix or some youtube running in the background. Testing on a 100mbit connection is insane.
Well there's no need to do that. As, if it can't run decently on insanely good connections, there is absolutely zero chances it will work half as good on a slower/worse connection.
Overall, it's not speed that matters, it's stability and ping/delay that's the biggest factor.
Also, just in general it's much harder to do that for them unless they can go somewhere to do such tests, etc.
But the fact that they DON'T run well or reliably on a 100mbs connection is even more of an indictment? If it's poor on a connection that fast, trying to use it on anything lesser is basically throwing money in the toilet.
You can have a fiber connection and it could not matter depending on where you’re located at and where the servers are latency is a huge problem
Where are you from? Fast broadband is easily and cheaply available where I am. I pay around £40 a month for 200mbps, and there's no data caps or throttling.
Ah the gamecube in Tom's background fond memories
one thing that folks tend to forget about cloud gaming is the proximity with the servers, I live in South America I can import a Japanese only released game(or download it from a Japanese ACC) and apply it no problems, but with cloud games, if the service provider isn't physically available in my country/ in a city next to me I'll have an awful experience/ not been able to play at all
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 could have run easily on Switch. I don't understand the need of a Cloud Version for this
3 too, it’s not that heavy
@@megamanx1291 True
Storage related reasons most likely (1.5+2.5HD remix are maybe 75-80gb total)
@@bigthonty2718 I have the PS4 version, and it's around 46 Gb
There is one point missing for me. Kingdom Hearts 3 and Control especially have a very hard end game. So if a game is playable at the start the end game might be just too hard with the input lag, making some games not finishable or at least not viable for a 100% playthrough on harder difficulties.
Something to consider.
Tom and John in one video?
Please more of that duo!
Good vid, wish to see more of Tom, always nice to see everyone.
It’s always funny to hear that multi million company “didn’t have the recourses and time to port their game properly”
4:19 in Control yes, but in some other modern games i noticed that strange feeling that something is off. Like you can play with the settings, get over 60fps but still some games just feels bad. Guess most of the times it is latency issues. Quake 2 rtx comes to mind, i don't know what latency it has, but man it feels SO unresponsive no mater the fps.
I just dont understand why Nintendo refuses to make a more powerful Switch, the Switch by design is timeless, that thing could (and should) be running for eternity, just like today’s phones or a good ol PC. Just refresh the hardware every few years, people will upgrade no problem.
They will, just give it another year or two Nintendo is on Valve time when it comes to putting out more powerful hardware, we've already got the Mariko (smaller chip, better battery life), Lite and the OLED as revisions so either a slightly more powerful Switch or Switch 2 should be only a year or two away or whenever the Switch stops selling tens of millions of units every year.
So, KH3 runs up to 60FPS, but 1.5+2.5 is capped at 30? How does THAT make any sense? You'd expect it to be the other way around.
I've been waiting for a video on this subject for a long time you've been hanging around for a long time Digital guys
Cloud gaming is good for games like control but you can’t tell me KH wouldn’t run natively on switch
John you’ve really excelled in your camera lighting lately. The picture quality is top notch.
Buying a cloud-streamed on Switch game is bar none the biggest, stupidest waste of money on videogames right now.
In general I'm not remotely convinced by cloud gaming, there's just too many downsides without any significant positives
Thanks for doing this one, I've been interested in how good these versions were since I first saw them in the e-shop.
Given that they're server based there was potential here to expect them to out-do the XBO and PS4 in visual quality for some of these games, and it's disappointing that they've gone the 'cheap and cheerful' route for the servers while still charging a significant price.
Is there a more wholesome RUclips community that the digital foundry one?
Short Answer:No
Long Answer: Hell No
We need consistent 5G/FiberOptic connections to make this experience smooth!
I've got an awful feeling that the next Switch will be a streaming only console
5:35 "I was sat next to my wife... Fi-router, and..." (and imo either one of them would introduce online gaming lag worthy of a Digital Foundry deep dive).
Since most of these games are on GamePass, a comparison of xCloud on an Android device with similar display size would be welcome.
I guess it’s profitable enough for these guys to keep pumping out Cloud games one after another. There’s just no reason to buy these since portability is thrown out of the window.
More so that it significantly less costly. They don't have to do much, if any work at all
Love the Destiny Islands intro/outro music
Oh boy i can't wait for the Pokémon Legends Arceus breakdown...
The main problem with cloud based gaming on Switch is you're paying full price for basically renting the game. It's the pricing problem
Cloud gaming when it works well is a beautiful thing. Stadia's streaming tech is great, I've played tons of destiny 2 on it, including crucible and you forget you are streaming a game, it's a shame there's barely any games and Google doesn't seem commited to actually improving the service.
And you have good portability, more than this Switch. With phones with latest WiFi 6 or WiFi 6E and 4G/5G you can go pretty much anywhere. With much better screens than the Switch too.
Cloud gaming, even in it's best, is a damn shame. Buying temporary, revocable access to a product is such an enormous worst-case for consumers, and the consequences on preservation are enormous.
@@DrLegitimate Many games require online despite being local, and usually the most played games are fully online that can and will be shut down. Most local videogames run through platforms that can be shut down, and most are not DRM free. Apart from that, gamers that play locally are buying GamePass, Ubisoft+ and the likes anyways. So, it's not like black and white, it's not a big difference after all. Regardless, GeForce Now is not a store front, your games are from different PC stores (stores that can shut down for everybody).
I personally prefer the convenience and affordability of Stadia, no need to worry about storage space or upgrades, worry about games and store installs, updates and so on. I usually play games once, and don't come back, and I don't attach sentimentally to games but the memories they left on me.
The convenience of playing anywhere regardless of hardware and software: Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Chrome OS, Chromecast, smart TVs...keyboard & mouse, any controller (Stadia, PS5, Xbox, the phone itself as a virtual controller...).
Playing Cyberpunk 2077 in a phone running better than most consoles is possible.
I was an still am a console/pc gamer for almost 30 years. Played lots, lots of MMORPGs, high refresh rate screen, minimum input lags, etc.
Now that I am older and busier with life, I just play Stadia for pure simplicity and convenience. If I have 30min to play with my friend, I won't have to deal with a game patch, a store update, etc. As Stadia is running in devices I already use daily, won't deal with OS updates, and if so, I can play in any other device.
It's the future. Same with Netflix, Spotify, etc.
More convinience, simplicity, portability, affordability.
@@DrLegitimate Any digital purchase can suffer from that. Sony could revoke your access to digital games, when their servers go down, good luck downloading your old games, so it's not a cloud specific issue, but a digital one.
Those who care about this preservation aren't the ones who will be the target audience, they will be people who buy physical copies of games
@@Manuel-rl6um It is definitely not the future. It's probably [a] future for the casual crowd, in the same way the phones are a big market, but they are mutually exclusive with the more serious side of gaming.
Also, Stadia is pretty shitty... I mean, if you are going to simp for cloud gaming, at least simp for the better services... But It kinda looks like you were paid to write that, so whatever I guess.
Excellent analysis, thank you for this!
...but can we have a different background during the talking heads-part? Seeing the Stork from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island twirling in the sky from the beginning demo gets old fast!
There's no reason 1.5 + 2.5 can't be on a physical card. Also, 720p 30fps? We got 1080p 30fps on a PS3! A freaking PS3! We should be able to get 1080p 60fps
10:25
“I do”
🤣🤣
Square has been on greed mode lately which is a shame cause not too long ago they were being pretty damn generous.
This is so sad. Imagine people who only have a switch and this is what they can get.
Ok I’m actually baffled. I never had any stutter nor lag, except the occasional hiccup. My connection ain’t anything special either.
Hahahaha when John says "Only a 100mbits... Not great". Absolutely unfathomable internet speeds for me.
13:57 I'm surprised John only has 100Mbps down. I've had a 1GB connection for years.
I wonder how DF feels about PS NOW nowadays. I was playing RE5 a few days ago on it and I think over 3 days I had maybe one 2 minute occurrence that res dropped and never had any inkling of increased latency over playing the native version.
I was really impressed in how improved the service performance has become over the years.
The Kingdom Hearts collection running at 720p/30 is an actual insult. At these settings it might've just run natively without any extra work. That's exactly how the PS3 version ran.
game streaming in general is just such a massive no go for me. but this is even more egregious, nintendos always had laughable online infrastructure.
Not a fan of streaming either, but this is dependant on Ubitus rather than Nintendo's own infrastructure
@@aquaglow1 oh completely forgot about that, well id honestly expect more then, this analysis reminded me of trying onlive in like 2014
Finally, a face I can put on the more recognised df voice
I kept having to remind myself this video isn't low quality, it's the footage of cloud streaming to switch.
First glace I saw hitman as Thanos 😳
Great video
I bought Control Ultimate Edition: Cloud Version, about a week ago, and I’m really impressed. I have mid to great tier high speed internet, and I can play comfortably anywhere in my house. There can definitely be weird stutters, especially when there’s a bunch of combat going on, but I’d have to say, at least 90% of the time I forgot I was playing a Cloud game. I’ve beat it a few times, already put 50 hours on it. But with all the nuances of cloud gaming, the price of these games are the biggest pill to swallow. I think the best thing they can do is do tiers, like 5.99 for a week long pass, 14.99 for a month, or full price for the unlimited pass. That would get more people to sink money into it, and see if it’s worth it for them and their internet.
This is why the Steam Deck is in such a good position to be successful. It will have instantly be able to leverage peoples vast PC library of games that were bought on the cheap. No Nintendo tax, full AAA games on the go. Unless there are serious hardware issues, they will sell them as fast as they can make them. The Switch has a terrible Wifi chip that was never designed for cloud gaming
If I need internet to play this game, I’ll play it on my laptop. This was a horrible decision as I would have purchased the most expensive collectors edition for every one if they were physical. I’m obsessed with this series. What a shame.
Great video as always!
Should we even be surprised with the price for Kingdom Hearts on Switch? After all it is published by a company that decided all it's future games on all platforms are $70/€80 without regional pricing.
Well now I know why I was able to get the $90 package for over 60% off today..
I question Squares choice though for Kingdom Hearts 1.5 & 2.5 going cloud as well since those games should be able to play smooth natively without any issues since those HD versions were on the PS3 and the PC version requires so little to play it.
And where are even their servers located? Saying that the biggest drawback is the WiFI isn't correct. The biggest drawback is the distance and number of hoops between your device and the server the game is running on.
I'm so mad that Square Enix didn't put the effort into porting the games. They could've put 1.5+2.5(save space by replacing the movies with the DS games and put the movies on the eShop), 2.8, and 3 on separate carts. I could somewhat understand 3 being a cloud game, but the others are completely unacceptable.
Please take a look at Life is Strange True Colors on Switch. They heavily modified UE4 lighting and its damn impressive from what I see.
The complaints about lag remind of the switch over to Windows 95: Quake's frame rate is lower!
27 years from now they'll be complaining that 4M holograms have a lower frame rate than 64K video...
Interesting. During that kingdom hearts 3 discussion I 100% get what you guys are talking about, but watching the DF video on my tv it looks pretty ok to me.
And I think I made a HUGE mistake today. Edge of eternity is on the switch. But it's the cloud version. I had no idea before I bought it. I am willing to see this game play experience through though since I did pay money for it.
God I love kingdom hearts music
For the kingdom hearts collection ports they did the job of porting them to some sort pc cloud server but couldn't port them to switch... that´s ridiculous
I think nintendo needs to get these cloud games in their Nintendo subscription. As others have said your basically renting the game and the prices are way to high for a game you might not be able to play when the switch gets replaced. I do think it has potential just not fully there yet.
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 and 2.5 could definately run natively on switch. Square Enix is just lazy af
I can almost understand cloud versions of games that the switch might not be able yo handle but Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2? You're telling me the switch can run doom eternal natively but we need cloud versions of PS2 games?
saying that playing without game mode significantly impacts the latency is a very big exageration.
i have played all my games without game mode and even at 30fps and there has been no noticable input delay when i play those games, bloodborne, sekiro, nier, all played fine and i never had the feeling i had a delayed input.
It definitely depends on the TV. My ancient 720p LCD from 2008 had no appreciable difference between game mode on and off, and there's also no real difference compared to my new monitor. I don't have display lag numbers for either of them, but you'd certainly expect the monitor to be noticeably faster. But I have seen some TVs where you absolutely need game mode to make games playable due to all the extra processing crap they do otherwise.
From my personal experience . Cloud gaming on the switch works about as well as a cigarette lighter onboard the Hindenburg. I managed to play the menu for both Guardians of the galaxy and plague tale but nothing else the only one that worked semi-decent was Control.
you know it's bad when Tom says "come on"
Thing that blows is KH3 late game and during the DLC bosses is so intense and fast paced any kind of input latency kills it completely. I straight up don’t know how anyone on switch is going to beat the data fights or Yozora with the kind of lag they showed here.
Like a slower paced RPG could work here but something fast paced like KH needs responsive inputs to be playable.
Before watchcing: I think they're not the most appropiate games for a cloud version. That said I haven't heard bad things about them, so that must account for something, right?
These cloud ports are just so strange to me. The types of people who own a switch as their one and only gaming platform just do not strike me as the type of people who are going to play Hitman, Control, Plague Tale, Kingdom Hearts, MAYBE Gotg.
Running outdated games in 720p should render a frame in a about 2-3 ms on Nvidia P40 or so. These frames also transfer faster than 1080p or 4K as they are simply of much smaller size. If you add that all together, this could easily work in sub 40 ms alltogether. Biggest problem might be the Switch Firmware or WiFi (which might lay in the WiFi module of the switch itself). Depending on the condition, you can get away with 2 ms additional lag. Electromagnetic waves travel at lightspeed, too...
The compression really is worse than current RUclips, that's impressive.