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While it remains to be seen if Google plans to expand this test and turn it into a full-blown paid service, it’s clear that it’s working on the technology to make this happen.
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The service will support wired PlayStation and Xbox One and 360 controllers, though you can obviously also play with your mouse and keyboard. You’ll also need both a Ubisoft and Google account. Your internet connection has to be able to handle 25 megabits per second and you must live in the U.S. Google is only taking a limited number of testers. If you want to participate, though, you’ll have to be fast. “When streaming TV or movies, consumers are comfortable with a few seconds of buffering at the start, but streaming high-quality games requires latency measured in milliseconds, with no graphics degradation,” the company notes in today’s announcement.
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And for any game-streaming service to be playable, the latency has to be minimal and the graphics can’t be worse than on a local machine. You can sign up for the test now starting on October 5, Google will invite a limited number of participants to play the game for free in Chrome.Īs Google notes, the team wanted to work with a AAA title because that’s obviously far more of a challenge than working with a less graphics-intense game. To sweeten the pot, Google is launching this test in partnership with Ubisoft and giving a limited number of players free access to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for the duration of the test. The company today unveiled “ Project Stream,” and while Google calls this a “technical test” to see how well game streaming to Chrome works, it’s clear that this is the foundational technology for a game-streaming service. Earlier this year, we heard rumors that Google was working on a game-streaming service.
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