AWS can do computationally intensive tasks such as graphics rendering in the cloud - that is, in their huge data centre - far away from anyone's living room. Aiming initially at mobile games but with a view to replacing powerful consoles, AWS’ new service AppStream sends, or “streams”, game screens to any internet-connected device including flat-screen TVs and handhelds, much as YouTube does for non-interactive video. All the gamer needs is an input device such as a hand controller, touch screen or keyboard and mouse. AWS senior vice president, Andy Jassy says customers are clamouring to be able to free their gaming from fixed devices. Microsoft already knows this - that's why it uses its cloud to allow gamers to host various Xbox Live games that can be started at home, paused, then continued on a mobile device or vice-versa. The video games industry was worth $1.161 billion in Australia last year, but is dwarfed by the US market where analyst DFC Intelligence estimated it was worth $US63 billion in 2012 and projected to hit $US78 billion by 2017. At an age where a game such as Grand Theft Auto V costs $US266 million to make and first-day games sales dwarf the opening day of a Hollywood blockbuster, AWS hopes to capture a significant new revenue stream by disrupting the games industry as it did when it introduced cloud computing to big business.

“End users want to consume these computationally intensive applications on any device they have, large or small,” Jassy said at AWS’ annual conference in Las Vegas last week. “And so mobile developers have to build really rich and computationally intensive applications and sell to a relatively small market. Or they can sell to the maximum [number of] end users with far less capable hardware and water down the experiences. “We looked at this and wondered if there was a way for the cloud to make a difference here?” 'A market that simply does not exist' AWS’ built one of the world’s fastest supercomputers to handle the streaming load, Jassy said. “It allows you to build whatever app you want and stream it from the cloud to any device and it appears to the end user as if it was on that device. The quality is that high.”

Behind AppStream, is AWS’ graphical processing array (known as G2) and high-performance processing supercomputer (C3), which perform in the cloud the same function as a console’s brains in the lounge room. Its advantage is that instead of waiting seven years between console generations, AWS’ infrastructure is continually updated. But John De Margheriti, an Australian games industry veteran of 28 years and founder of games studio Micro Forte, says consoles won’t disappear. “Consoles will retain relevance, as there is no delivery of experience for a big budget [game],” De Margheriti says. But he acknowledges the console market is shrinking and “because eyeballs are looking at smaller screens”. He says developers of blockbuster franchises won’t jump into cloud streaming: “[It’s] a great idea looking for a market that simply does not yet exist, nor will it become large enough in reasonable time”. IBRS analyst Joe Sweeney says although these games are “technically feasible” it will be a “very slow evolution”.

“The growth will be the casual gaming market rather than diehard console gaming market,” Sweeney says. He says that one day streaming games may be subscribed to, much like pay-TV today. While Australia has second-rate broadband, the idea will never fly, says Steven “Baj” O’Donnell. “Cloud streaming, when the processing is done offsite, is out of the question for now and the foreseeable future. We don’t have the bandwidth,” says O’Donnell, co-host of ABC TV’s Good Game. And he is skeptical of AWS’ claim that it will work on mobile: “I’d be very hesitant to use any streaming on my phone when I’m not connected to my home’s broadband because I would run out money”. The writer attended the AWS event as a guest of the company.

18 years of ‘Next-gen’ consoles November 1995: Australian launch of Sony’s first games console, PlayStation July 1995: Australian launch of Sega Saturn March 1997: Nintendo’s Australian launch of its 64-bit, SGI-powered Nintendo64 March 2000: Sony launches PlayStation 2

March 2002: Microsoft’s Australian launch its first games console, Xbox November 2005: Microsoft Xbox 360 launched March 2007: Sony PlayStation 3 launched in Australia November 22, 2013: Microsoft launches its third console, Xbox One, worldwide November 29, 2013: Sony launches PlayStation 4 in Australia