News and social media look toward the future of the game and entertainment console

As a boy, I remember the impatient process of flicking my 1970s era game console on-off switch up and down up to 20 times to get my “Adventure” game to display properly. Fast forward 30+ years, and this week I’m trying to determine where in my living room to position my 13” tall Xbox 360 to make room for a new home theater component. This week news media, game publishers and developers are abuzz once again about server-side rendering, with its promise to re-imagine the game console in our living rooms: size, simplicity, power efficiency.

There has been a huge round of initial coverage in response to the revelation by OnLive, a company demoing a new server-side rendering gaming solution, and the follow-up news this week of others innovating in similar ways. Media reactions thus far range from straightforward reporting of the promise OnLive outlined and demonstrated to more critical views of the barriers to success.

We were pleased with the response we received as well in January 2009 when AMD showed off similar technology; the conceptual demos OnLive has shown are kindred spirits to the AMD Fusion Render Cloud concept that Dirk Meyer and Jules Urbach of OTOY presented at CES09. That so many new entrants are entering the mix is validation that this concept captivates the imagination and appears poised to enhance the consumer experience in a meaningful way.

Many reporters, bloggers and industry analysts asked us what the OnLive announcement means to AMD, and whether we see players like OnLive as competition to the AMD Fusion Render Cloud concept. Simply put: the more the merrier. We’re not surprised by these developments and the warm reception from the industry. Server-side rendering has been discussed for years and, AMD had been working for a while on technology that can deliver high-quality, immersive and interactive entertainment experiences directly from the cloud. 

Ultimately, our goal is to give consumers access to HD games, videos and everything in between regardless of their location or the HD-capable device they chose. We want the consumer to be able to access HD content (be it a game or a Blu-ray movie) as easily from a seat on the bus as from a couch in the living room.

Granted, this is a tall order and AMD continues to work with a number of partners including OTOY, Image Metrics and Electronic Arts,to name a few. For those following the conversations our January announcement sparked, and similar conversations reignited this week, you can see that the hurdles to having a mass market, consumer-ready product are not minor:

-         Sufficient compression to overcome latency and network bandwidth issues still remain a key part of the question.

-         One of the things AMD continues to grapple with as well is making that experience seamless and unobtrusive. For instance, most consumers already have any number of devices in their living room, whether it’s a video game console like Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii (I have both these AMD-powered consoles in my living room), or a media center PC or personal video recorder (PVR). How can those be employed to deliver that HD entertainment experience from the cloud rather than needing yet another piece of hardware in the room?

As we work through these challenges and others as an industry, it’s clear that the AMD Fusion Render Cloud concept, and the broader idea of entertainment delivered over the cloud, offers a real growth opportunity. Like everyone else, we’re excited about the OnLive announcement. It’s important to remember that at the center of these concepts — the heart of what it takes to make this HD cloud experience possible — is a high-performance computing platform that brings together GPU and CPU technologies. That’s at the core of what makes AMD unique in the world of computing innovation, and what drives great digital entertainment experiences.

John Taylor is Director, Global Platform & Product Communications at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.