We recently looked at Shadow, a cloud-based, virtual high-end gaming PC, capable of playing AAA games, on ultra settings, from anywhere in the world, on the most modest of devices. Now Google has announced something very similar, ‘Project Stream’, which will allow users to play AAA titles via Google Chrome.

Google is preparing to publicly test Project Stream for the first time in a few days, with a ‘limited number of participants’ gaining access to the service. Google has teamed up with Assassins Creed Odyssey and is allowing a select few to play the game for free, on release day, via Google Chrome and Project Stream.

Very much like Shadow, the service will allow any laptop or PC, regardless of gaming capabilities, access to such AAA titles, via the browser, with just one condition, there is a minimum internet speed requirement. Google is recommending your connection is at least 25mbs download, to avoid any increased lag. Lag, that’s one thing that is still unclear. What will the input lag be like? A click of the mouse, using WSDA to move your character, will it be responsive, will it be playable? Only time will tell.

Google released a video yesterday, showing a 1080p / 60fps stream via Chrome, which was more a teaser to me, but ‘shows’ its potential. You will, of course, require a 1080p display, to achieve that level of quality.

Project Stream opens the door to a new way of gaming, an affordable solution to the masses perhaps? Could the service be available on mobiles? What about Chromecast? Could we see AAA titles being played on our TV’s, from the comfort of our sofa’s, without the outlay on a PC or console? There was a rumour that the next Chromecast could support Bluetooth…

I’m left with many questions, about the quality of the service, the lag aspect and also the cost the monthly cost that it almost certainly going to be associated with such a demanding, data centre heavy service.

Hit the link below to download Google Chrome…

https://projectstream.google.com/aco/chrome