The arms-race between Microsoft and Sony is well underway, and gamers seem poised to benefit the most. Both corporations are attempting to create offerings to usher in the true next generation of gaming. A recent patent uncovered from Sony shows that it is looking at the frustration of gamers with cloud-based streaming latency.
The current flow of breakthroughs and inventions is increasing at a drastic rate, paired equally with either obnoxious announcements or whispered rumors. Microsoft is rumored to have offered a massive bid for Discord as Sony picks up EVO, and the back-and-forth war for consumers’ hard-earned coin continues unabated. Yet while the cadence seems to be of acquiring new avenues, the concern that older mediums of play will be left wayside however briefly is one of note. Thankfully, Sony appears to understand that yesterday’s offerings need to be brought up to today’s standard.
A Sony patent is looking at how to handle cloud-based game streaming latency. This is an aspect that has continued to frustrate gamers ranging from the Google Stadia to Sony’s PS Now On PC. It appears that Sony is taking a page from Nvidia’s unique DLSS solution to handle that latency, using back-up processing to render titles faster while keeping the data externally sourced. The patent notes that, in cloud-based gaming, the majority of the processes are handled by the cloud-based server. This brings the inclusion of back-end processing to streaming titles an ideal fix, as it doesn’t increase the restrictions on gamers streaming said titles.
Both Sony and Microsoft offer unique streaming solutions that can stream titles to various platforms for play on demand. This solution can run awry occasionally, hindered by network congestion and multiple titles demanding instantaneous reflexes that work poorly with latency. The titles running from an external source, through the internet, to the destined platforms offer multiple possible chokepoints of data.
While the obvious solution would be to allow players to download the titles and run them locally, it appears that Sony wants to ensure control of its titles. Thus, the only actual solution from Sony, presuming that local installation is undesired, is to figure out how to make streaming of titles offer less latency.
This could be a futile effort: Google withdrew from Stadia before managing any first-party titles as reported frustration of framerates and resolutions struggling, even under ideal circumstances. The patent outlines how the back-end could be used as a further workhorse for streaming titles by removing “aggressive power-saving features” and tasking the GPU with the expected workload.
Notably, this does not solve the issue of the internet, which creates additional latency that Google notably struggled with in the Stadia. Yet if Sony can use the patent to result in a “good enough” solution, it could likely partake in the success Microsoft has found with the Xbox Game Pass for PC.
Source: USPTO
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