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[JohannCK]

Couldn't help but notice that there's been a lot of misinformation on the fog gaming thing going around the internet even here (and even after I tried to correct it) so I figured a new anti-misinformation thread to fact check would be justified.

Fog gaming is not a gaming service.

It is not about streaming arcade games at home.

It is not about powering arcade cabinets with cloud computing.

There is no mention of streaming arcade games in the column. It seems like someone somewhere made a blind assumption, and then everyone else started regurgitating it as if it were the truth.

What Sega wants to do is make the next generation of arcade boards cloud-capable, which would turn cabinets into cloud computers and game arcades into data centers.

This eliminates the initial cost of finding space for a data center and getting equipment (since arcades would have to get new machines eventually anyway) and also the running cost of renting the space and maintaining the equipment (they're just maintaining the arcade machines as usual).

This basically means a free data center for every arcade. Sega does plan on expanding this to other game companies and industries, with business VMs and render farms being listed as benefiting from this. Potentially this means thousands of cloud data centers in Japan at basically no cost. It also means that arcades are less likely to go out of business since they have a new source of income.

I wrote an article on it with the full details (what is currently known, at least) here:

Lag Reduced to Under 1ms: Sega's Fog Gaming Solution - Frontline Gaming Japan

Sega's Fog Gaming solution proposes turning arcades into data centers, reducing cloud lag to under 1ms.

www.frontlinejp.net

This has ramifications for basically everything that has anything to do with cloud computing, albeit only in countries where this is feasible (i.e. where there are lots of arcades). Though depending on how much income the data center stuff brings in this might even mean that it becomes feasible for more arcades to be opened in countries where they usually aren't.

The tech is still in R&D and will ostensibly be applied to the next generation of arcade boards so it isn't something we'll be seeing in the next year or so, but it's still pretty huge for tech. For gaming, not so much aside from the less lag for streaming thing.

 

[SentientStone]

Cloud... Steam... Fog?

 

[Bojanglez]

It is actually quite a forward thinking plan, use existing partner spaces, provide them with additional benefits directly (better infrastructure/services for the arcades) whilst also offering an additional revenue income for Sega (edge computing capabilities).

This to me is kind of like how some solar panel companies offer to install solar panels on your home, you get cheaper electricity bill, they can make money off the hardware by the additional capacity sent to the grid.

Like the OP says, might only make sense in certain markets, but I like the thinking.

 

[JohannCK]

This to me is kind of like how some solar panel companies offer to install solar panels on your home, you get cheaper electricity bill, they can make money off the hardware by the additional capacity sent to the grid.

Pretty much this, but from the column it sounds like the way payment works is different: The arcades probably just incur some sort of initial cost with the new boards (Or perhaps royalties? What it costs them is not mentioned in the column), but from then on they're free to monetise their cloud capabilities on their own (the column talks about arcades getting a new source of income).

 

[NXGamer]

Couldn't help but notice that there's been a lot of misinformation on the fog gaming thing going around the internet even here (and even after I tried to correct it) so I figured a new anti-misinformation thread to fact check would be justified.

Fog gaming is not a gaming service.

It is not about streaming arcade games at home.

There is no mention of streaming arcade games in the column. It seems like someone somewhere made a blind assumption, and then everyone else started regurgitating it as if it were the truth.

What Sega wants to do is make the next generation of arcade boards cloud-capable, which would turn game arcades into data centers. This eliminates the initial cost of finding space for a data center and getting equipment (since arcades would have to get new machines eventually anyway) and also the running cost of renting the space and maintaining the equipment (they're just maintaining the arcade machines as usual). This basically means a free data center for every arcade. Sega does plan on expanding this to other game companies and industries, with business VMs and render farms being listed as benefiting from this. Potentially this means thousands of cloud data centers in Japan at basically no cost. It also means that arcades are less likely to go out of business since they have a new source of income.

I wrote an article on it with the full details (what is currently known, at least) here:

Lag Reduced to Under 1ms: Sega's Fog Gaming Solution - Frontline Gaming Japan

Sega's Fog Gaming solution proposes turning arcades into data centers, reducing cloud lag to under 1ms.

www.frontlinejp.net

This has ramifications for basically everything that has anything to do with cloud computing, albeit only in countries where this is feasible (i.e. where there are lots of arcades). Though depending on how much income the data center stuff brings in this might even mean that it becomes feasible for more arcades to be opened in countries where they usually aren't.

The tech is still in R&D and will be ostensibly be applied to the next generation of arcade so it isn't something we'll be seeing in the next year or so, but it's still pretty huge for tech. For gaming, not so much aside from the less lag thing.

The bold sums up much of the internet and Social media, perfection. /s

Great idea and could be a turn-around for the the Arcade business, I for one am all for that. Great OP and thanks for the info and detail.

 

[JohannCK]

The bold sums up much of the internet and Social media, perfection. /s

Great idea and could be a turn-around for the the Arcade business, I for one am all for that. Great OP and thanks for the info and detail.

I've been looking at other articles on the subject and there's so much that is just stuff that people made up out of nowhere that is nothing like the things stated in the column. In fact some of it outright contradicts the column.

I added a fact check section to the article listing and refuting a few examples.

 

[Birdo]

Cloud... Steam... Fog?

The next one will be "Gas" (Probably EA).

 

[Handy Fake]

I honestly thought people were taking the piss with that name...

Well, you live and learn.

 

[mejin]

The next one will be "Gas" (Probably EA).

or Fart (also probably by EA).

 

[JohannCK]

I honestly thought people were taking the piss with that name...

Well, you live and learn.

Fog computing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That Wikipedia article doesn't explain the name but the gist of it is that it's basically just the cloud, but all around you/the user instead of up in the sky.

 

[Wonko_C]

So this thing IS industry shaking after all, just not in the way most of us expected.

 

[TigerKnee]

Thanks for this thread. Pretty freaking awesome. Reminds me of @folding?

 

[a multicultural team of v]

Yea this is basically the arcades mining Bitcoin overnight.

I sort of wonder how much computing power this really would be. Arcade machines aren't actually that high end, and there aren't that many of them. It is a good idea but I am very curious the capacity.

 

[Handy Fake]

Fog computing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That Wikipedia article doesn't explain the name but the gist of it is that it's basically just the cloud, but all around you/the user instead of up in the sky.

Cheers chief. It just sounds really weird to my ears.

 

[KiNeMz]

Can someone explain to me what the benefit of this is?

Is this so I can play virtua fighter 5 in an arcade against someone in another arcade with minimal latency?

Are we utilising the arcades from our hike consoles?

I don't see the point. Just shifting where the data centre is. Why is this earth shattering?

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

If this ends up becoming a large revenue stream for SEGA, I'll support it on the basis they use some of that to fund AAA or AA new entries in Panzer Dragoon, Ristar, a Phantasy Star V, and GunValkyrie Remake.

Pretty much this, but from the column it sounds like the way payment works is different: The arcades probably just incur some sort of initial cost with the new boards (Or perhaps royalties? What it costs them is not mentioned in the column), but from then on they're free to monetise their cloud capabilities on their own (the column talks about arcades getting a new source of income).

I hope arcade games on these new boards can leverage any of the hardware that can be utilized this way. Is it possible that one system could, say, use another system on the floor space as a cloud renderer to that it can do some processing tasks for a game the other arcade unit is running, helping to effectively increase its visual, AI, logic etc. capabilities wirelessly?

These new boards will probably have really good wifi hardware built into them out of necessity; while that type of combined power would still work better on wired interconnects between systems, this sounds like it could add an extra option.

 

[Faithless83]

That's great news!! Maybe this will make arcades a thing in the west...

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

The only thing that's foggy were the brains that thought of all this useless junk.

 

[cireza]

So this is Folding@Home ?

 

[the_master]

Thank you for the explanation!

Edit: If this helps keep arcades open or even making feasible opening arcades somewhere else, then that'd be really great

 

[lyan]

Yea this is basically the arcades mining Bitcoin overnight.

I sort of wonder how much computing power this really would be. Arcade machines aren't actually that high end, and there aren't that many of them. It is a good idea but I am very curious the capacity.

Some of them are just modded ps4 I think so I suppose most are similar level hardware. However there are plenty of game centres in Japan and if this turned out to be good business it would justify more investment on the hardware, and probably, more game centres to be run as the core revenue requirement lowers.

 

[yurinka]

I'd love to get the actual text from the Famitsu column to read the exact working, and if possible properly translated to English.

I don't know if this frontlinejp site is realiable, but others who are mentioned about allowing playing the arcade games from home trough streaming.

 

[JohannCK]

Can someone explain to me what the benefit of this is?

Is this so I can play virtua fighter 5 in an arcade against someone in another arcade with minimal latency?

Are we utilising the arcades from our hike consoles?

I don't see the point. Just shifting where the data centre is. Why is this earth shattering?

It's not shifting data centers, it's making new ones by the hundreds, if not thousands. That means more processing power in the cloud, and less data latency due to it being far more likely that users have data centers in their immediate vicinity.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

I sadly see a problem with that though.

Arcades are waning in Japan despite still being the most popular form of entertainment in the country.

Putting this infrastructure will cost them a lot of money and I don't think this will offset the risk or reverse the trend of Arcade games not being as popular anymore.

I don't want to sound negative of course, but it feels like SEGA is doing what they did in the past. Innovating at the wrong time and will lose money despite being a great idea.

I hope it works out for them, but the cost of making their future Arcades Cloud Compatible doesn't seem to reflect the potential profit return.

It would certainly be revolutionary and very forward thinking but it kind of feels like adding a Touchscreen to your 50 inch TV, it's a great idea in theory, but I have a phone that is 100x smaller that works better.

I wish SEGA the best with it and I am certain they can make something of it like Microsoft did with Kinect (putting the tech into iPhones), so i hope it becomes successful to be implemented elsewhere.

 

[SegaShack]

This stuff honestly makes me think that in the future there will be a time where terms of use for an OS for your computer or game console will give companies control of your resources when idle.

 

[D.Final]

This stuff honestly makes me think that in the future there will be a time where terms of use for an OS for your computer or game console will give companies control of your resources when idle.

The PC will become the official All in one console

 

[Hendrick's]

So will this mean non-game specific cabinets? Won't they all be capable of playing any game?

 

[Miles708]

I sadly see a problem with that though.

Arcades are waning in Japan despite still being the most popular form of entertainment in the country.

Putting this infrastructure will cost them a lot of money and I don't think this will offset the risk or reverse the trend of Arcade games not being as popular anymore.

I don't want to sound negative of course, but it feels like SEGA is doing what they did in the past. Innovating at the wrong time and will lose money despite being a great idea.

I hope it works out for them, but the cost of making their future Arcades Cloud Compatible doesn't seem to reflect the potential profit return.

It would certainly be revolutionary and very forward thinking but it kind of feels like adding a Touchscreen to your 50 inch TV, it's a great idea in theory, but I have a phone that is 100x smaller that works better.

I wish SEGA the best with it and I am certain they can make something of it like Microsoft did with Kinect (putting the tech into iPhones), so i hope it becomes successful to be implemented elsewhere.

If I've understood correctly, it's actually the countrary: this is made precisely to extract more value from each cabinet machine even when it's not in use. The cloud computing could be then used for any task requiring a lot of processing power (I think something like CG rendering, or scientific research) in a very convenient way for sega, the user and the arcade owner.

In the right enviroment could make arcades even more attractive to open and mantain.