Support NeoGAF

[fallagin]

No. I don't understand the issue people are having here. Dedicated servers for 360, One and PC. That does not mean other platforms will gain any benefit from the additional features the cloud provides XBox One.

There is no proof that xbox one cloud has any features beyond any other dedicated servers. 'Drivatars' are used in real racing 3 on ipad, and I'm sure that any other special features could be done on amazon or other dedicated servers.

It's great that they are cheaper, but they're not exactly special.

 

[Sobriquet]

Yeah, I even brought that up earlier, but its normal to question just what in the world they're talking about.

Takuya's doubts and assumptions are reasonable.

Agreed. I see nothing wrong with his post.

 

[USC-fan]

This guy (Partner Studio Manager, Microsoft Studios, Xbox) is pretty confident they'll have them

bookmarked. lol

At this point i dont think MS itself doesnt even know what going on. Seem the biggest game COD ghost doesnt even have DEDICATED SERVERS. lol too funny.

Edit: Unless they are just talking about dedicated matchmaking servers. Damn that was well played by that guy. MS have trained these guys well. He almost got me. SOmeone needs to ask about P2P multiplayer.

 

[Deadbeat]

Well if the PC version doesnt have the “nice-ities” of the xbone version they will need to convince me why its worth buying instead of cod/bf4/more planetside 2 stuff.

 

[link1201]

bookmarked. lol

At this point i dont think MS itself doesnt even know what going on. Seem the biggest game COD ghost doesnt even have DEDICATED SERVERS. lol too funny.

Edit: Unless they are just talking about dedicated matchmaking servers. Damn that was well played by that guy. MS have trained these guys well. He almost got me. SOmeone needs to ask about P2P multiplayer.

Yeah, MS is in desperate need of a single voice...it seems there are too many people giving out info that isn't always consistent.

 

[KHarvey16]

You're assuming there *are* special functions only available to the Xbox One for some reason.

All we have are statements being made by MS and developers, but ultimately I don't have to assume there definitely are these features to call out those assuming that there definitely isn't. The post I responded to contained a number of assertions that cannot be supported by anything other than speculation.

 

[Monumental]

You're depicting it as if those servers will magically disappear when they're not needed. They may be switched off but they still exist, somebody paid for them, somebody has to maintain them in terms of functionality and space. That's probably one of the reasons Microsoft is pushing them so hard in PR terms. It's not a secret their cloud services aren't as successful as they expected in the PC world (Office 365 being an example) so they came up with an idea to utilize the resources they already have. Not a bad thing, to be honest, but that stupefying PR...

Please don't talk about things you have no clue about. Microsoft is huge in cloud services. Half of the Fortune 500 companies use Windows Azure.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazur...cent-of-fortune-500s-using-windows-azure.aspx

Martin writes that Microsoft manages to double the amount of Windows Azure's compute power, along with doubling the amount of storage it can handle, every six to nine months.

"With over four trillion objects in Windows Azure and an average of 270,000 requests per second, customer requirements grow and are met daily. In peak periods, demand can grow to a staggering 880,000 requests per second."

So no, don't spin this with some BS like Microsoft had some servers lying around and didn't wanna waste them, that's why they want developers to use them. It reeks of ignorance.

 

[netBuff]

Please don't talk about things you have no clue about. Microsoft is huge in cloud services. Half of the Fortune 500 companies use Windows Azure.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazur...cent-of-fortune-500s-using-windows-azure.aspx

Martin writes that Microsoft manages to double the amount of Windows Azure's compute power, along with doubling the amount of storage it can handle, every six to nine months.

"With over four trillion objects in Windows Azure and an average of 270,000 requests per second, customer requirements grow and are met daily. In peak periods, demand can grow to a staggering 880,000 requests per second."

So no, don't spin this with some BS like Microsoft had some servers lying around and didn't wanna waste them, that's why they want developers to use them. It reeks of ignorance.

50% of fortune 500 companies? That's a really useless metric and tells you how dire the situation must be. There don't seem to be many relevant services (outside of Microsoft) based on Azure - compare that to how present Amazon AWS is.

There are many indications that Azure is far from a success, Mary Jo Foley even wrote an article on this last year: Can Microsoft Save Windows Azure? http://redmondmag.com/articles/2012/02/01/can-microsoft-save-windows-azure.aspx

 

[Louis Cyphre]

Well it cleared up one area.

With the Xbox Live Cloud, we don’t have to worry about estimating how many servers we’ll need on launch day

Meaning no matter if only 1,000 people bought Titanfall or 10,000,000. It will handle the load. These datacenters are also all over the world.

So they built this powerful system to let us create all sorts of tasks that they will run for us, and it can scale up and down automatically as players come and go. We can upload new programs for them to run and they handle the deployment for us. And they’ll host our game servers for other platforms, too! Titanfall uses the Xbox Live Cloud to run dedicated servers for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox 360.

It doesn't mention how the Xbox One gets the niceities that the PC won't.

 

[adizzy615]

50% of fortune 500 companies? That's a really useless metric and tells you how dire the situation must be. There don't seem to be many relevant services (outside of Microsoft) based on Azure - compare that to how present Amazon AWS is.

There are many indications that Azure is far from a success, Mary Jo Foley even wrote an article on this last year: Can Microsoft Save Windows Azure? http://redmondmag.com/articles/2012/02/01/can-microsoft-save-windows-azure.aspx

From this year: Azure sales top a billion

 

[netBuff]

From this year: Azure sales top a billion

This tells us pretty clearly how small a player Microsoft is comparatively:

About 20 percent of companies tapping the cloud use Azure, compared with 71 percent usage for Amazon, according to James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. (FORR)

And it continues to be an uphill battle for Azure:

“The majority of people thinking about cloud weren’t thinking of Azure first,” Staten said. “That’s been an uphill climb for them, and even though Microsoft is now matching the prices of Amazon and some of the capabilities, they haven’t really answered the question of ‘Why Azure?’”

Startups, which tend to be early adopters of new technology, may be an especially hard sell, he said.
“They haven’t excited the front-line developers -- the ones who made Amazon who they are,” he said. “Those will be hard to influence.”

This speaks volumes:

Even after Key’s firm participated in a Microsoft program that gives free software to startups, he chose Amazon’s cloud service two and a half years ago. Now that Azure is more on par with Amazon, Key said he doesn’t want to switch.

 

[Louis Cyphre]

This tells us pretty clearly how small a player Microsoft is comparatively:


And it continues to be an uphill battle for Azure:


This speaks volumes:

What does that have to do with Titanfall? Wouldn't getting something like the Xbox One involved be beneficial to Azure?

 

[maabus1999]

This tells us pretty clearly how small a player Microsoft is comparatively:


And it continues to be an uphill battle for Azure:


This speaks volumes:

I love it when people cherry pick.

 

[Bsigg12]

What does that have to do with Titanfall? Wouldn't getting something like the Xbox one involved be beneficial to Azure?

He's just finding ways to bash Microsoft. People like to do that

 

[Takuya]

Were you trying to see how many assumptions you could fit into one post?

Everyone's claims about Xbone having some special "thing" on the server are pure assumption too. Don't see what you're getting at.

 

[netBuff]

What does that have to do with Titanfall? Wouldn't getting something like the Xbox one involved be beneficial to Azure?

This pretty much indicates that Azure isn't any kind of amazing wonder-technology (like I wrote before and is pretty evident). What would the "niceties" be that are available for Xbone, but not PC? This isn't magic, if they aren't offering special tools (which seems pretty hard with how advanced today's cloud world is) and no cost advantage, what's special?

He's just finding ways to bash Microsoft. People like to do that

Some people like their claims of special technology to be evidence based, and not marketing driven.

 

[Louis Cyphre]

He's just finding ways to bash Microsoft. People like to do that

I see that. The whole point of making a better business model is to add more business. The Xbox One has the potential to sell 10's of millions of systems. Having publishers/developers use these servers brings more exposure and royalties.

 

[KHarvey16]

Everyone's claims about Xbone having some special "thing" on the server are pure assumption too. Don't see what you're getting at.

I guess two wrongs make a right then. And just to be clear, one of these entities making the claim is a developer. Now, believe them or don't but don't try to say you and they are working based on the same information.

 

[netBuff]

I see that. The whole point of making a better business model is to add more business. The Xbox One has the potential to sell 10's of millions of systems. Having publishers/developers use these servers brings more exposure and royalties.

Azure has to stand on its own merits: Where the Xbox One to not exist, by offering an attractive value proposition Azure could still be the de-facto host for most games.

If they are forcing developers to use Azure for Xbone over other services (which seems unlikely) like you seem to indicate, they are actually doing the opposite of what their marketing is trying to tell us: They are making their platform a worse proposition by complicating developers jobs.

 

[Louis Cyphre]

This pretty much indicates that Azure isn't any kind of amazing wonder-technology (like I wrote before and is pretty evident). What would the "niceties" be that are available for Xbone, but not PC? This isn't magic, if they aren't offering special tools (which seems pretty hard with how advanced today's cloud world is) and no cost advantage, what's special?



Some people like their claims of special technology to be evidence based, and not marketing driven.

God forbid an actual game developer to like using Xbox Live Cloud and explain some of the benefits while you show us all your credentials by pointing out how Key's firm chose Amazon instead. That explains everything!

Azure has to stand on its own merits: Where the Xbox One to not exist, by offering an attractive value proposition Azure could still be the de-facto host for most games.

If they are forcing developers to use Azure for Xbone over other services (which seems unlikely) like you seem to indicate, they are actually doing the opposite of what their marketing is trying to tell us: They are making their platform a worse proposition by complicating developers jobs.

So when someone like Ted Price from Insomniac gets excited about the possibilities in their game Sunset Overdrive we should ignore him as well and just get you on speaker-phone instead? Sure.

 

[Wonder Cheese]

All we have are statements being made by MS and developers, but ultimately I don't have to assume there definitely are these features to call out those assuming that there definitely isn't

I've read this sentence about 6 times and I'm still utterly lost.

 

[netBuff]

God forbid an actual game developer to like using Xbox Live Cloud and explain some of the benefits while you show us all your credentials by pointing out how Key's firm chose Amazon instead. That explains everything!

Yes, a developer that just happens to develop an Xbox/Windows exclusive game is praising Azure by providing vague non-information and generalities in the form of a blog post. Sorry that I'm not impressed.

 

[maabus1999]

Azure has to stand on its own merits: Where the Xbox One to not exist, by offering an attractive value proposition Azure could still be the de-facto host for most games.

If they are forcing developers to use Azure for Xbone over other services (which seems unlikely) like you seem to indicate, they are actually doing the opposite of what their marketing is trying to tell us: They are making their platform a worse proposition by complicating developers jobs.

Azure is the fastest growing cloud service at this moment. I'm sure it will do just fine with or without the X1.

 

[netBuff]

Azure is the fastest growing cloud service at this moment. I'm sure it will do just fine with or without the X1.

While "fastest growing" isn't all that impressive against established services, this is exactly what I intended to convey: Gaming's potential is pretty small compared to the intended audience for Azure - cloud computing wherever it is needed. Azure doesn't live or die based on the Xbone, it's just too small a market comparatively to really matter.

 

[Louis Cyphre]

Yes, a developer that just happens to develop an Xbox/Windows exclusive game is praising Azure by providing vague non-information and generalities in the form of a blog post. Sorry that I'm not impressed.

Reading other comments from you it's clear what you're impressed with and not impressed with. No point in wasting my time any further.

 

[maabus1999]

While "fastest growing" isn't all that impressive against established services

You don't do much in normal business world I guess? Amazon definitely sees Azure as a very large threat, especially since the market is no where near mature at this time.

In fact it is common in business for the first movers in new technology spaces to lose out in the end, for a variety of reasons.

Again Azure, and even Amazon, will be fine with or without gaming consoles.

 

[netBuff]

You don't do much in normal business world I guess? Amazon definitely sees Azure as a very large threat, especially since the market is no where near mature at this time.

In fact it is common in business for the first movers in new technology spaces to lose out in the end, for a variety of reasons.

Again Azure, and even Amazon, will be fine with or without gaming consoles.

I guess you don't do much business in the normal world, I guess. Otherwise you would have read my arguments more carefully.

I never indicated that Amazon wouldn't see Azure as a threat, or that Azure couldn't overtake Amazon's offerings some day. Just that it isn't magic only available for Xbox One.

I also never claimed that gaming is in any way a hugely important market for cloud computing.

So when someone like Ted Price from Insomniac gets excited about the possibilities in their game Sunset Overdrive we should ignore him as well and just get you on speaker-phone instead? Sure.

I'm arguing against this being unprecedented - cloud computing can be a great addition, it's just not something that is uniquely possible or even feasible with Xbone as flexible technology for such purposes is widely available. Lessened (artificial) bandwidth restrictions with newer consoles will allow for more advanced solutions.

 

[PistolGrip]

So wait MS is charging developers for the "cloud" services (or dedicated servers as we now know them)?

I guess they can use other services like Amazon and Rackspace to provide dedicated servers if they can get them cheap enough.

 

[USC-fan]

So wait MS is charging developers for the "cloud" services (or dedicated servers as we now know them)?

I guess they can use other services like Amazon and Rackspace to provide dedicated servers if they can get them cheap enough.

Or just host your own like EA and sony did on the PS3/PC.

 

[Louis Cyphre]

Or just host your own like EA and sony did on the PS3/PC.

Exactly. It's not like Sony offered dedicated servers for free to 3rd party on the PS3. Titanfall is console exclusive so I would imagine they worked out a deal.

 

[Black_Stride]

But this doesn't make it sound awesome! Cloud use is being used as a buzzword when really most people are not going to see any benefit. The main benefits of the cloud will be for developers

And that will in turn benefit us gamers.....which will benefit the developers, which will benefit gamers....and the cycle goes on and on.

Happy devs making happy gamers, making happy devs.
Dedicated servers console wide is pretty damn amazing, considering all the grief ive had with the current console hosting solutions.

This is standard stuff that every MMO already does. Nothing new, nothing innovative. Nothing to be excited about.

Console wide dedicated servers are nothing new, innovative and nothing to be excited about?

This guy (Partner Studio Manager, Microsoft Studios, Xbox) is pretty confident they'll have them

Music to my ears!

 

[ElTorro]

This is an interesting question regarding the "niceties" not available on PC version.

I am pretty sure, that by "niceties" they are refering to tooling support. Azure is more of a PaaS service (Platform-as-a-Service) where you don't have to manage virtual servers on an OS level, but can deploy the actual server application without having to worry about administration, load distribution, etc. The computation resources are provided on a more abstract level are and easier to manage. In addition, Azure already provides a certain architectural style (worker roles) for such applications that makes scaling easier.

Just a theory but there has been some discussion about dedicated hardware being built into the Xbox One for encoding and decoding data to alleviate the bandwidth limitations of server side computing. Since you can't count on every PC having the capabilities of this dedicated hardware (the move engines) then maybe that is why it can't be used for PC.

The move engines are purley for exchanging data between ESRAM and main memory without need for the GPU. Their benefit is to move data between the two pools without staling the GPU. Their compression/decompression hardware support is for decompressing assets on the fly without performance penalties, a feature that PS4's APU also has. (They are only using different compression algorithms.) This is pretty clearly described in the leaked documents.

 

[ElTorro]

And that will in turn benefit us gamers.....which will benefit the developers, which will benefit gamers....and the cycle goes on and on.

Exactly. I don't get this "it's only for developers" argument. People have to realize that this benefit for developers makes all the difference between having dedicated servers and not having dedicated servers.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Every multi-player game having dedicated servers is a great thing for developers and players, I'm not seeing the discussion here.

 

[Metalmurphy]

Every multi-player game having dedicated servers is a great thing for developers and players, I'm not seeing the discussion here.

Not every multiplayer game will have dedicated servers automatically... developers simply have the choice of paying Microsoft to have them.

Didn't they say already that CoD Ghosts won't have them?

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Not every multiplayer game will have dedicated servers automatically... developers simply have the choice of paying Microsoft to have them.

Ok, they will have access to dedicated servers.

 

[Fistwell]

Well it cleared up one area.

With the Xbox Live Cloud, we don’t have to worry about estimating how many servers we’ll need on launch day

Hopefully that means smoother launches for server-relient games and services. Will be interesting to watch how things shake out when the xbone launches, as well as when online games get released.

Didn't they say already that CoD Ghosts won't have them?

*raises eyebrows*

Really?

"Press X to bark P2P?"

 

[Reckless Onion]

If every game also third party will have dedicated servers, that could sway me to buy an xbone

 

[HocusPocus]

Not every multiplayer game will have dedicated servers automatically... developers simply have the choice of paying Microsoft to have them.

Didn't they say already that CoD Ghosts won't have them?

If that's true I don't know how anyone can buy CoD Ghosts at all after seeing Battlefield 4. There's really nothing Ghosts is doing better.

 

[Brad Grenz]

It's something to justify paying for Live, at least.

It's a cute trick, getting users and publishers to pay twice for the same service.

 

[BruiserBear]

Paraphrasing:-
"We spoke to both MS and Sony. They both said they can help. But MS said yes with a big wad of cash."

This

 

[LittleJohnny]

You have a very narrow view on the company's priorities and business. Microsoft wants to be a big player in the cloud computing business, a field they've been surpassed in by the competition. That's why they're heavily investing in Azure: They aren't spending this money for the Xbox alone, but to further all their services as well as any interested third parties that want to rent computing power for their own purposes. Microsoft doesn't want other companies to continue to rule the web.

Azure in itself isn't ground-breaking or new, but it doesn't have to be - it's still important to Microsoft as a company and helps pretty much all aspects of their operation.

If not new, what console in the past has used this?

 

[Raist]

What about graphics and physics and AI and stuff?

If they truly end up having dedicated servers for every game out there, that's quite cool. I'm wondering if that'll be enough at some point though.

 

[velociraptor]

What about graphics and physics and AI and stuff?

If they truly end up having dedicated servers for every game out there, that's quite cool. I'm wondering if that'll be enough at some point though.

The only thing that dedicated servers can offer is client-side processing for A.I.

Games such as Diablo 3 already do this. The game requires an internet connection at all times, and enemies, drops, loots are generated by the server which are then streamed to the player and back. All data and stats are handled by the server.

As for improved graphics.... Lol.

 

[LunaticHigh]

Dedicated servers are not new. Every multi player PC game I play has them. Titanfall not having them makes no sense.

Titanfall is my most anticipated game, I'd like to get it on my heavily invested PC but I won't buy an inferior version.

 

[Rourkey]

If the dedicated servers look after AI etc on how much extra processing does this release to the client CPU's and how much would that additional power make to the graphics?

So does AI use a lot of CPU, Does CPU power help with graphics?

 

[mangochutney]

Console wide dedicated servers are nothing new, innovative and nothing to be excited about?

It isn't console wide though.

It isn't mandated, nor is it free.

They simply appear to be offering a discounted rate. So even then it is still up to the dev & publisher if they want to provide dedis or not.

And there is nothing stopping people using cloud for 360 and PS3 - so really dedis are just as 'console wide' for those two too. Or the Vita, or any online console.

 

[LittleJohnny]

If the dedicated servers look after AI etc on how much extra processing does this release to the client CPU's and how much would that additional power make to the graphics?

So does AI use a lot of CPU, Does CPU power help with graphics?

Nope, all of the resources freed up to the cloud will be used for TV....TV I tell ya!!

In other related news, Mercedez is working on a new supercar, a 32 cylinder beast, although some argue it's nothing new since cylinders have existed for a good while.

A new book from a best selling author is making headlines, although critics argue that it's nothing new, just reworked letters from the alphabet.

 

[flyingmonkeywhoa]

Doesn't all this cloud stuff basically imply that you'll require an internet connection to enjoy most of the XB1's single player games as well? I really wish they just added 8 GB of GDDR5 (unified) and just used that instead of trying to push this cloud computing stuff so hard.

 

[EvB]

Doesn't all this cloud stuff basically imply that you'll require an internet connection to enjoy most of the XB1's single player games as well?

Yep, which renders half of the arguments about DRM and MS's 180 on the situation totally void.