Content Owners, Cablecos Take Game Playing Very Seriously

In a strong show of support for interactive gaming services as a core contender for gradually increasing Internet bandwidth, game owners and content giant Viacom Inc., as well as cable colossus Comcast Corp. outlined their plans to bring more and better games to the consumer masses.

Plans for gaming services are taking shape as the big bandwidth and low latency needed for an optimal user experience portend to be addressed by a CableLabs specification, known as DOCSIS 3.0 that is set to enable downloads of 160mbps and uploads of 120mbps when deployed by cablecos.

“We have the popular game ‘Guitar Hero’ and are planning to roll out ‘RockBand,’ so what the cable companies do with DOCSIS 3.0 will help with latency issues so we won’t have to do work arounds to make the experience optimal,” said Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom.

When it comes to real-time, interactive, multiplayer video games, latency (delay) is far short of optimal. And while the DOCSIS 3.0 efforts are seen as addressed Internet speeds, CableLabs CTO Ralph Brown, said crushing latency is a top goal of the ongoing effort, which saw Texas Instruments announce a compliant chip Monday.

Cablecos such as Comcast see big benefit to offering these games.

“We want to host games in our network and have already created a dedicated group in our company to work with the gaming community,” explained Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast. “We also already have a gaming platform. We obviously want to make this the best gaming experience because it’s a huge part of American youth.”

Peter Chernin, president and COO of News Corp., is looking beyond cable-based gaming services to mobile games. His company has cut a deal with Internet gaming site IGN and “will continue to invest in mobile games. They will be much simpler than high end games. We’ve found too that they have huge appeal with women.”

Gaming took center stage at the beginning of the year at the Consumer Electronics Show in January when Microsoft TV announced plans to merge its IPTV software with the company’s Xbox 360 gaming platform.

Provides have found that interactive video games, the likes of which Microsoft and others support on their consoles, devour large amounts of Internet bandwidth, with one FFTH provider, Optical Entertainment Network Inc., charging an additional $100 for an extra 100mbps of symmetrical bandwidth to gamers.

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