2021 LG Smart TV customers will be able to play high-powered graphics games via cloud services from Google Stadia and NVIDIA GeForce Now, out of the box – no console or PC needed. Note: the photo is for illustration only. Not the actual LG 2021 TV.
Cloud Gaming is not new, and much progress has occurred since we started reporting on that trend in 2011 with Onlive and which I theorized could work in 2008. Since then, NVIDIA even changed its architecture to reduce latency as much as possible within the graphics pipeline, party to help game-streaming and high-responsiveness.
All you needed was a client to handle the data stream, display, and game controls. That sounds easy, but we are talking about high-end smartphone or mid-range laptop computing power here, and TVs were not in that league at all.
That is why for many years, NVIDIA and others relied on external boxes to create and promote that market. But no question embedding it inside the TV is the best way to go.
But LG’s 2021 TVs are indeed powerful enough for such applications, probably thanks to a combination of faster hardware and very optimized thin-client software. But the result is that LG, Google, and NVIDIA find the outcome good enough to productize it.
"GAMING HAS REALLY BECOME A THING FOR LG TVS"Independent reviewers have acclaimed LG OLED televisions as gaming monitors. Not long ago, I was able to see it for myself when I visited LG’s Silicon Valley offices for a demo. Beyond the obvious performance, I particularly liked how the most recent TV Settings has well-integrated gaming features. Gaming has really become a thing for LG TVs.
With this new feature, the number of people who potentially care about the LG panels’ gaming capability will skyrocket. Every customer can be a potential gamer, whether they own a PC/Console or not.
Gamers are often pickier about things like contrast ratio, color gamut, (variable) refresh rate and response time, things that LG’s OLED TVs are known to excel at. Therefore, this could be the nudge that LG needs to convert even more potential users into buyers.
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