Is Google Right About Data Caps?
Cloud gaming is starting to look like the future of video games. While console leaders like Sony and Microsoft are not ditching their beefy hardware just yet, both are pivoting in a way that suggests that they see the writing on the wall: At some point, games' software will primarily live on remote servers, not compact discs or your hard drive.
But there are still some obstacles to a full cloud gaming revolution, despite how much Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and other companies with cloud gaming interests might wish it were otherwise. Chief among those impediments is the state of America's broadband internet infrastructure: There are still 19 million Americans without access to broadband connections.
Even in areas well covered by broadband, the behavior of internet service providers (ISPs) could present a problem for cloud gaming as ISPs can do all sorts of things to punish heavy bandwidth users, including throttling connection speeds on specific sites, apps, and services. Crucially, ISPs can also cap the amount of data customers can use before steep fees kick in. That's a real issue for cloud gaming, but Google seems loath to admit it.
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