[7][3][8] Some services may offer additional features to take advantage of this model, including the ability for a viewer to join a player's session and temporarily take control of the game.
[9] Due to their dependency on high-quality streaming video, cloud gaming services typically require reliable, high-speed internet connections with low latency.
[12] The network infrastructure required to make cloud gaming feasible was, for many years, not available in most geographic areas, or unavailable to consumer markets.
"[15] The provider's dedicated hardware can be upgraded over time in order to support higher resolutions and frame rates for the rendering and streams.
[7] The Quality of Experience (QoE) that measures the user's general level of satisfaction also needs to be brought into consideration during the development phase of cloud gaming.
A functioning prototype was first presented at the E3 2004, running Unreal Tournament 2004, and then again at QuakeCon, where it was shown to be capable of perfectly operating Quake 3 Arena on a dedicated server.
After a couple years of setbacks, the company bankrupted in 2008, with the Phantom console never officially released to the market, becoming one of the most popular vaporware of recent times.
[27] Under Lauder Partners, the new OL2 attempted to pivot its business model to allow streaming of games already owned by the user, but this failed to be profitable.
[27][25] As stated by The Verge, the acquisition of both Gaikai and OnLive's intellectual property gave Sony access to a range of patents covering cloud gaming.
[29] Grid was formally introduced as part of its Nvidia Shield Android TV device during the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show.
[32][33][34][35] This importing model was criticized by publishers including Activision Blizzard and Bethesda Softworks, as purchases were only intended for personal computers and not through cloud gaming.
[36] In 2017, the French startup Blade launched a service known as Shadow, where users are able to rent a remote Windows 10 instance on a datacenter, with allocated access to an Intel Xeon processor and Nvidia Quadro graphics.
[38] EA subsequently announced "Project Atlas", a project to explore the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Frostbite engine technology to create a "unified" platform to "remotely process and stream blockbuster, multiplayer HD games with the lowest possible latency, and also to unlock even more possibilities for dynamic social and cross-platform play.
[49][50] Microsoft has also announced plans to use a similar approach to bring the xCloud game streaming technology to iOS via the browser sometime in early 2021.
[54] A proposed method to improve game streaming's scalability is adaptive graphics processing unit (GPU) resource scheduling.