Warning: Colleagues are unusually likely to 'break' their monitors soon
- Reference: 1654844228
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/06/10/microsoft_samsung_game_streaming/
- Source link:
Samsung has offered streaming games since early 2022, taking advantage of its smart displays running the Linux-based Tizen OS. The "gaming hub" installed on those devices can already deliver games from Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now.
Xbox is a rather larger brand, making this deal considerably more significant.
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Only Samsung smart tellies and monitors from 2022 can stream Xbox games, and they'll only do it for holders of an Xbox Game Pass – although Fortnite can be played without a subscription. Numerous Bluetooth-equipped gaming controllers will connect wirelessly to the smart displays.
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All those pre-2022 monitors are awfully nice, though. It would be a pity if anything … happened to them. Oops.
Samsung's 2022 M8 Smart Monitor is a 32-incher listed at $699.99 and includes Microsoft Office, plus streaming video apps, and a webcam. It's billed as capable of substituting for a PC once keyboard and mouse are connected. Microsoft's low-end Xbox Series S sells for $289.99 and the higher-end Xbox X costs $499. Both need an external display. While either one costs less than the M8, in your correspondent's opinion a Samsung monitor has become an alternative worth exploring for those contemplating the purchase of a gaming console.
[4]AMD touts big datacenter, AI ambitions in CPU-GPU roadmap
[5]Epic Games' court dates with Apple and Google pushed into 2024
[6]Sony Interactive Entertainment pulls PlayStation from Russia
And maybe even for businesses looking to show their work-from-home staff a little love, because Samsung smart tellies and monitors allow remote access to PCs and are equipped with browsers that could run cloudy desktops.
Accessing Xbox games on a Samsung screen requires an app that the Korean giant says behaves like the streaming video apps it offers for popular subscription services.
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This deal expands the reach of Xbox into many homes and situations where a dedicated gaming console might not be welcome.
That’s doubtless got Microsoft excited, because the console market enjoys strong sales in the year or three after the release of new hardware but then goes quiet. Microsoft's legendary nagware – Go on, please give Edge another try, and log on to OneDrive while you're at it – surely has a role reminding us all that new gaming possibilities abound.
AMD might be less excited. It's done well making custom CPUs for consoles, and they could sell in smaller quantities if tellies become a more common way of consuming games. ®
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Tizen?
On your home network all the time?
Read the stories of developing for it, and you will realise that security is not really possible. Avoid.
How long is it supported for? Does it Phone Home?
As per the title, how long will Samsung support these 'Smart' TV's with software and security updates? 1-year? 2-years? 5-years?
Also, how much telemetry is this 'gaming hub' sending back to Samsung and other partner companies? Do you have any option to opt-out of that?
These features add no value to me as they just add more complexity to an appliance which will render it obsolete sooner rather than later. I mean, they won't want you to be able to update the gaming hub app to the latest version in five years because they'll want you to upgrade to the latest and greatest, even it it still works fine.
For me personally, there is no compelling reason to consider buying one of these. YMMV though.
Re: How long is it supported for? Does it Phone Home?
A very good point. My previous Samsung smart TV became less and less smart over time as vendors got bored of making the apps. I dread to think what security holes were left unpatched in its firmware too...
So
Is it still possible to purchase a TV screen without all this 'smart' bollocks? Asking for a friend...
Re: So
A have a TV with a network interface that I will not connect to my network. It has been working fine for years. When it dies of old age I will be looking carefully at reviews to ensure the replacement works without a network connection. By that time I may have to repair the TV's wifi antenna with wire cutters so it does not connect to the neighbour's ISP supplied router with a password sold by the ISP to the TV manufacturer.
Re: So
I do the same, I steam to Apple TV and Chromecast - oddly I trust these companies a bit more than Samsung...
Re: So
My Panasonic tv is now 6 years old, iPlayer is erratic and prime doesn’t work with profiles. So now it is used for broadcast tv and the rest of time it is fed from the Apple TV, Blu-ray or PlayStation.
When it needs to be replaced (ie it is broken) then all I care about is the number of hdmi sockets and the picture quality as the rest of the services won’t be used.
I think the last firmware update was about 4 years ago…..
Re: So
That's my general plan. The existing Panasonic is theoretically smart, but as its only connection to the outside world is through an HDMI cable, it doesn't get the chance to exhibit its alleged intelligence. Even the sound is stripped from the HDMI so I can hear it on a decent pair of speakers.
Re: So
I always hear this, but just enjoy the lower prices. You can buy an unfathombly large TV for a low price shipped from across the world these days, in part due to all the shite software and data slurping they include.
Simple solution: don't connect it to the network. "Smart" TV functionality is simply a trap for fools, nobody should be dependant on it.
Office 365? On a TV?
What kind of nonsense is this? OK it supports a keyboard, but I can see people trying to write letters or slide decks with their TV remote.
And then when 3 years are up and the TV OS is no longer supported, what then?
Will TVs soon come like a PC, on which you can install your own choice of OS? Or can I just remove the “smart” electronics and just revert to being a monitor? Or just sell us a 50 inch 4K monitor, that would do.
Samsung no thanks, they will just abandon the model 6 months after going on sale and no further updates.
A screen is a screen is a screen
A screen does not need smarts, all it needs is the ability to render an image, whatever the source.
Stop this "smart" nonsense. Just slap an Ethernet connector on it and allow me to stream whatever I want to watch from wherever I'm getting it.
If all it can do is render an image, it doesn't need updates and won't fall into obsolescence before its components die.
Put the smarts into whatever I connect to it, but leave my screen alone.
Consumption
So basically, continuing the trend of forcing more & more functionality and features into fewer and fewer devices, which superficially sounds good, but in reality just provides more routes to a quicker obsolescence.