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[LordBaztion]

I'm not really much interested in Crackdown but I'd like to see this technology to be used on some games to create some optional (online only) cosmetic effects.

Also, MS, make a Pacific Rim game.

 

[Torment]

MS didn't create Azure just for games. It's a competitor to other cloud platform providers like Google and Amazon. They really want high scale web applications hosted on there. Games logic is just another thing it can host.

MS is pushing Azure hard for all software developers (not just game devs). You can't even start a new project in Visual Studio without it trying to get you to host your app/site/db/etc on their Azure servers.

Thunderhead, a specific data center was created with just gaming in mind, then they can leverage additional servers if they need to.

 

[ElTorro]

My mistake, they aren't working only with MS. They are working with Epic, Havok, and NVidia. Certainly doesn't seem like a tech that would be in any way relevant to game streaming.

That does not mean that they are selling that particular middleware to them. As I said, I am willing to have a bet about being proven wrong in the near future.

You are describing the role of a cloud service provider. If a 3rd party has to step in and manage that, that provider has failed.

Auto-scaling that is domain-specific is not part of what IaaS providers can offer. Especially since it is domain-specific. Generic auto-scaling features are often pushed as a sliver bullet by marketing, but technologically they are not. To have a solution that really works for you, you need to have a scalable software architecture, as well as appropriate workload prediction heuristics, both specific to your use case. So you can make money by building such things for particular domains.

 

[On Demand]

What are you basing this on, exactly?

Hi. Don't kill me please, but you're asking why he's being skeptical of a tech demo ?

I will remain a doubter of this cloud stuff until i'm actually playing a released game with that level of tech they're claiming. But as we all know, it never works out that way now does it.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

I don't see that happening here, really, but we don't have any evidence of Sony or Nintendo building the same type of technology as Crackdown or a similarly scaled cloud infrastructure like Azure/Thunderhead. Maybe they are working on some similar things, but until they do, Sony and Nintendo can't exactly say, "We can do that too." The closest thing Sony has done is the Rackspace acquisition, but isn't that for PSNow?

Sony payed 300mil $ for Gaikai, I think they should get more out of that than just PsNow.
But right now nothing indicates that Sony will offer anything like that in the near future, but also nothing indicates that any other game besides Crackdown 3 will use the tech.

I think it'll take another couple of years until we will see this tech in games regularly and till then Sony and Nintendo have time to catch up.

I think for widespread adaption among developers(3rd party) this needs to be possible on more plattforms than just Xbox.

 

[ANDS]

What are you basing this on, exactly?

I'm not sure why it's so out of this world to have a healthy level of skepticism based only on "We've heard things like this before. . ."

 

[llAuburnll]

I'm not really much interested in Crackdown but I'd like to see this technology to be used on some games to create some optional (online only) cosmetic effects.

Also, MS, make a Pacific Rim game.

See this is me too. I didn't care for crackdown previosly, it got repetitive really fast. And the superhuman abilities kind of got out of hand quickly. But this looks just so wild that I will have to check it out. The possibilities though like you said for other games...aw yiss.

 

[ironcreed]

It becomes like Infamous.

Or Red Faction, but probably still more impressive. Regardless, I'll play offline and on to experience it all.

 

[Carn82]

I'm not technically savvy enough about this stuff to know if it's possible or not, but wouldn't the cloud tech basically offload some of the physics calculations to the cloud, then send it back to the xbox as pre-baked?

Kinda like how this pre-calculated physics trick was possible on an Xbox 360 (in Metro Last Light), except with data being sent from the cloud in real time:

It at least seems plausible to me, and pretty innovative at that. Can't wait to see it in action.

For bigger stuff my guess is they have an algorithm/technology that 'breaks up' meshes/geometry into new objects, with their own new sets and vectors in relation to nearby/relative objects. This calculating will probably run server side, and the X1 will just have to render it. My suspicion is that 'parts' will be rigged/semi pre-baked anyway (for gameplay and performance purposes). The thing with 'game physics' is that its always an approximation of reality, so I'm sure that there are a lot of tricks happening under the hood to make things look 100% realtime and 100% realistic, while it mathematically isnt. I also doubt that every new piece of geometry will have collission detection.

 

[Castef]

Or Red Faction, but probably still more impressive.

Red Faction has plenty of destruction.

 

[Interceptor]

"This client is more powerful than this client because i don't know shit about tech and still write about it for a living." ^^

 

[Mushroomer25]

You won't see this take off for SP applications. The always-online justification only passes muster in MP situations, which is why Crackdown 3's messaging around this feature is the correct way to go about it.

Assuming no major shifts in US internet policy, you're probably right. It's just not practical for a major SP game to pursue this, because it's not a guarantee. The infrastructure is still just crappy enough that online usage has to be justified. Multiplayer content is justified, but visual flourishes for single player content isn't. People just can't guarantee their connection will always be there, at a competent speed.

Now in a hypothetical world where all of America has access to a reliable, low-priced fiber optic connection, we can revisit the idea. If an internet connection becomes as assumed as an electrical connection, games will start relying upon it in more key ways.

 

[R3TRODYCE]

I hope it's fun.

 

[Torment]

Sony payed 300mil $ for Gaikai, I think they should get more out of that than just PsNow.
But right now nothing indicates that Sony will offer anything like that in the near future, but also nothing indicates that any other game besides Crackdown 3 will use the tech.

I think it'll take another couple of years until we will see this tech in games regularly and till then Sony and Nintendo have time to catch up.

I think for widespread adaption among developers(3rd party) this needs to be possible on more plattforms than just Xbox.

Gaikai is a streaming technology, that is the company's main purpose. I don't think we will ever see anything compute related from them. Rackspace is the datacenter they are renting servers from, however they would need a lot bigger investment to ever do something like this since it is persistent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaikai

 

[ironcreed]

Red Faction has plenty of destruction.

It sure does. I love it, but this blows it away and I am betting it will offline as well.

 

[Dreadx_Jecht]

Guess it's console warriors or people that can't grasp the technology in their head and should be called out but yeah click bait pr speak is big in the article.

Which part of this article was clickbait pr? I'm not disagreeing btw.

 

[Apathy]

Which part of this article was clickbait pr? I'm not disagreeing btw.

That your xbox becomes the most powerful console part. Again is not your xbox that does it, it's the server doing the calculations


Edit: if they said upfront the server scaling up doing calculations and leaving out xbox becomes 20x more powerful speak from presentations and interviews would stop console warriors from trying to use that as something to knock the game of the tech involved.

 

[Dictator93]

The PR strategy is working as expected.

.

It looks good when it is working currently, but there are a number of asterisks needed as well as conditions to have this work.

I also question the economic feasability of having to have a number of powerful servers spin up every time 2 or 3 people want to play a game.

 

[moered6]

not sure if this is know, but the game is actually releasing summer 2016,following the beta
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/08/...aign=Blogroll&abthid=55c378df207858115a000008

 

[jailbird20022]

popcorn time

In all seriousness this is great, means they've got a lot of juice to use for 1st party games.

Spoiler

Having all three consoles is nice

 

[llAuburnll]

That your xbox becomes the most powerful console part. Again is not your xbox that does it, it's the server doing the calculations

Effectively being the operative word here. It's entirely clickbait to get you to read it of course.

 

[Ont]

Crackdown 1 was a fun co-op game. One of the few games me and brother liked to play together.

 

[Kinyou]

The PR strategy is working as expected.

The PR strategy of "let's show off our tech"?

 

[GavinGT]

.
I also question the economic feasability of having to have a number of powerful servers spin up every time 2 or 3 people want to play a game.

This is a valid point. But keep in mind that each of those Xbox equivalent compute units is really just a slice of one of those powerful servers.

 

[jimbobsmells]

I love how 'Jones nods' so he can't be called out for actually saying that PR fluff.

Btw, guys I'd just like you to know I have the most powerful phone ever because my iPhone uses Siri sometimes. But only when I've got an Internet connection.

Spoiler

really looking forward to playing this game

 

[RiccochetJ]

I'm wondering how well it will scale once you have a couple hundred thousand people trying MP at the same time. That's a lot of VM's spinning up. It'll be a great stress test for their other applications at least!

 

[llAuburnll]

I'm wondering how well it will scale once you have a couple hundred thousand people trying MP at the same time. That's a lot of VM's spinning up. It'll be a great stress test for their other applications at least!

I am worried how well launch night/first couple days goes. Really hope it doesn't crash but I'm expecting it to.

 

[Raide]

I'm wondering how well it will scale once you have a couple hundred thousand people trying MP at the same time. That's a lot of VM's spinning up. It'll be a great stress test for their other applications at least!

Well, I think they said built for 4 players but I am sure they can split 1 servers into loads of players and then spin the VM's up as needed. Might be crazy if it sells massively.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Hrmmm...I guess you could do A.I. CD3 is basically offloading physics to servers. The more explodes, the more servers wind up. If they had a game where the A.I is complex, they could potentially do the same thing.

Dynamic weather as well would potentially work that way but it would have to probably be an open-world game where weather could be different all of the zone/world etc and have servers keeping track of that.

The cloud stuff seems to favour things that take CPU cycles to calculate, so math based things really.

So would theoretically, a game like No Mans Sky benefit a lot from the cloud since its basically all about the algorithms and stuff generating everything procedurally? Would the cloud help with the "pop in" going on in that game?

 

[Signet Son]

When Crackdown 3 releases, I will be the proud owner of 21 Xbox One's.

 

[KidGalactus]

Is Crackdown 3 getting Windows release, or is it Bone exclusive?

 

[Majine]

I bet it will be broken on Day 1.

 

[Wuthering_Heights]

Someone get the chalkboard out and uncross 'power of the cloud'

The Xbox One is saved.

 

[GnawtyDog]

Ok, he said it guys, let's all go home

But you're staying tho...so what gives?

Fantastic drive-by post from a Tearaway avatar with the name GnawtyDog

Umm...should I change my username to "ILoveXbox" with a Halo avy? Talk about bad drive-by's.... at least my post addressed OP's title as simple and clear as possible. It's not like this hasn't been discussed to death well before Crackdown showed up, or was announced for that matter. The answer is a simple NO.

 

[GavinGT]

I'm wondering how well it will scale once you have a couple hundred thousand people trying MP at the same time. That's a lot of VM's spinning up. It'll be a great stress test for their other applications at least!

It would be a drop in the bucket for Azure. They run something like 15% of all cloud servers worldwide.

 

[AmaterasuOni]

I know you probably meant that to be funny, but I don't doubt that more than once that hasn't been listed as a 'Pro' during the decision making process on whether or not to invest in this. Moves more towards the whole 'games as a service' future everyone is pushing, also.

Yeah, it was supposed to be funny. The concern is real though. If games are moving to "clouds", what happens to offline gaming? I don't mind a bit less destruction if I can play when ever I want to. Looking at the recent DDoS attacks and downtime, I really fear this "cloud gaming" is just a big flop.

 

[Journey]

What's wrong with you? I don't care what some other poster said. I didn't say that and I wasn't defending him I was making a point that it would be about half way through the generation. And it's not just my opinion on a 6 year generation, I would say that would likely be the consensus. In fact ea, Sony and and have all said as much:

http://www.mweb.co.za/games/view/ta...orter-lifespan-than-previous-generations.aspx

http://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matth...t-shorter-console-life-cycle-this-generation/

What is people's obsession with goalposts and defending and arguments? This is supposed to be a forum for discussion.


Edit: last post on the subject, I'm out of this thread.

Then discuss the context. If someone pops in with a comment that it's too late for this tech to be used because we're already half way through this gen, even though the gen has only aged 1 yr/9mo, it's pretty clear he's being disingenuous, heck even if the gen will last 6 years, that's nowhere near half way done. You might have your own point, but if you go back and read the string, you come off as defending him with your first reply, in any case sorry if this turned ugly.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

Gaikai is a streaming technology, that is the company's main purpose. I don't think we will ever see anything compute related from them. Rackspace is the datacenter they are renting servers from, however they would need a lot bigger investment to ever do something like this since it is persistent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaikai

Why such a big investment?
I'd think that the main problem is creating an engine that can handle a game running partially on local hardware and partially on a server. The servers shouldn't be a problem. Rent them or have a little farm yourself.
Afaik Sony already has its own farm with special servers based on the Ps3 hardware which can run Ps3 games, for PsNow. I doubt they rented them, because who would have servers which can run Ps3 games?

The question is whether or not the benefit(improved physics + maybe some other CPU tasks) justifies the cost.(Always on, having to build two seperate games basically, one with cloud in mind, one without cloud in mind, or choosing online only and alienating parts of the market, server costs etc.)

 

[EvB]

It's Dave Jones

Dr David Robert jones...

 

[TheSeks]

What else do you think is my butt?

I dunno, you tell me.

Spoiler

I love this "the cloud" to "my butt" extension. It makes threads entertaining to parse.

In any case, I'm wondering what the level of destruction for offline versus online will be. If the buildings aren't able to be destroyed it'll be a headscratcher when Frostbite has been doing it since last generation and it's offline/singleplayer can still destroy buildings and chunks of walls.

 

[nded]

The tech seems sound, but that headline sure is trying to bait dem clicks.

 

[mocoworm]

Edit: if they said upfront the server scaling up doing calculations and leaving out xbox becomes 20x more powerful speak from presentations and interviews would stop console warriors from trying to use that as something to knock the game of the tech involved.

You should be a headline writer ... that is one snappy title

 

[Raide]

So would theoretically, a game like No Mans Sky benefit a lot from the cloud since its basically all about the algorithms and stuff generating everything procedurally? Would the cloud help with the "pop in" going on in that game?

I am not sure how the game works now but potentially you could have a system where planets are made on the fly as you travel around and a server appears to populate and control it.

It could almost be Crackdown in space if you could deal with servers spinning up to deal with planets as you find them.

 

[RiccochetJ]

I am worried how well launch night/first couple days goes. Really hope it doesn't crash but I'm expecting it to.

Hehe, me too! They're doing an open beta for this correct?

Well, I think they said built for 4 players but I am sure they can split 1 servers into loads of players and then spin the VM's up as needed. Might be crazy if it sells massively.

Yep! The crazy part during the demo was that he indicated that they've had up to 15 vm servers helping with the load and that was for a single instance. I'm sure they're going to try and get that down, but it could get absolutely nuts!

 

[D4Danger]

Alright. I think I need to learn about how it all works.. I don't get it. Either way, I'm excited about it.

It's basically just sending loads of data about where every piece of geometry should be (over simplifying I bet but you get the idea). Normally those calculations would be done on the cpu in your xbox but instead they're taking the input data you would normally process, uploading it to their servers which has a simulation of the game running, doing the calculations there (like what happens if this rock hits that floor) and sending back the result. What happens to it after you've sent it is up to them, they can throw as much power at it as possible but all you'll ever get back is a tiny amount of data that tells things where they should be. It's the same way multiplayer games work now really but Microsoft have so much computational power available to them instead of just updating where 12 players are in a world they can work out where thousands of pieces of geometry are and how they collide (stuff that can scale way beyond what a single console can do)

 

[llAuburnll]

Hehe, me too! They're doing an open beta for this correct?


Yep! The crazy part during the demo was that he indicated that they've had up to 15 vm servers helping with the load and that was for a single instance. I'm sure they're going to try and get that down, but it could get absolutely nuts!

Yeah they are but I mean still. Launches usually go poorly.

 

[Raide]

Hehe, me too! They're doing an open beta for this correct?


Yep! The crazy part during the demo was that he indicated that they've had up to 15 vm servers helping with the load and that was for a single instance. I'm sure they're going to try and get that down, but it could get absolutely nuts!

The Beta will be a true test, since the majority of players are going to try and ruin the thing.

 

[Apathy]

You should be a headline writer ... that is one snappy title

yes for the realists gaming news, the most down to earth but least exciting news site on the Web.

 

[mocoworm]

I personally think the title is not really that misleading in the sense that this game will use the cloud and the whole system will be symbiotic. It is one system rather than a console/server. They need each other to function as regards the multi-player experience.

It does make the console more powerful than any other while running this game mode.

 

[bishoptl]

Not initially. But eventually..yes we will

No, we won't.

Always Online as a concept in relation to single player experiences is beyond toxic - it's radioactive.

You'll never see it applied as a console-wide "feature" again, seeing as how this generation has played out. Consumers will be on the watch for any hint of that creeping back in, and rightfully so.