Difficult to say, but I see points against this being a silver bullet of any sort.

A competitive game like starcraft wouldn’t be responsive enough if they transferred all unit data every tick. So they use a lockstep model, where only player commands are transferred, and they are relying on a deterministic system (not just physics) playing out the same on all connected machines.

However, a guideline for software companies is generally don’t reinvent the wheel, but “the secret sauce” should be your own. I imagine for competitive online games, the code that makes the network interaction crisp is part of the secret sauce. Such games, StarCraft, MMORPGs etc, also tend to have simpler game-relevant physics. Colliders so characters don’t clip through each other, some simple raycasting and instant collision checks for area effects, usually.

The angle a pebble flies away from an explosion is usually not made game-relevant even in single player games - so it’s not because they can’t, it’s because it doesn’t mesh with the game.

It might open up faster online play for some indie games, but I don’t know if it will have an impact otherwise.

Lol agree, but it’s “hear”, like “listen to this”