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Crackdown 3 uses cloud-based physics processing to enable environmental destruction

true words.

this guy gets it

Except for the fact that Microsoft was working on all of this cloud stuff before Xbox One and PS4 hardware was finalized.

Cloud computing is not a fallback plan for Microsoft in order to make up for hardware differences. It was their plan all along, regardless of which console was stronger.
 
I just think that the thread title could've been better, and not incite possible conflict. And i only say this because i've seen how other threads have turned out (not well).

The other threads that talked about Crackdown and the cloud were pretty benign in title and still shit up. I'd rather see posters held accountable for shitting up the thread, then blame placed on a title.
 
Next year it will be a multiplayer beta. It won't be a product you can buy until 2017. Unless the Xbox Wire article is lying.

But, yeah, you're right. MS has a bunch of idles severs lying around. That's one of the reasons we can tell this is a vanity project and not a serious solution for games in general. Anyone who isn't in desperate need of PR wins will look at the cost/benefit analysis and see how foolhardy the approach is.

Foolhardy?

The free cloud compute for Xbox games is to help encourage developers to integrate cloud into their games (in general) and invest in Azure (more specifically).

Cloudgine (developers of this tech) is a third party company, creating middleware software to help other devs use cloud compute for games.

This is an example, the beginning of cloud compute in games, not a vanity project.
It's Microsoft (the platform holder) showing gamers and developers what you can do with their cloud platform in games.
It's Cloudgine (the middleware developer) demoing their tech off to developers.


If it is a success and gamers love it, it's great advertising for both Azure and Cloudgine, and it could start a trend.
 
Actually, common sense would dictate that companies would act like companies and not play console war games like children.

Same reason Apple is okay with buying iPhone components from Samsung, and Samsung is okay with selling components to them. Money is money.
How long would Sony continue to buy Azure though for their games? I mean, they shut down MLB servers after a year. At least with MS it's essentially guaranteed to run for a long time if not virtually ever because, well they own it and they generally keep their games servers up for ages.

I do agree if Sony wanted to use it MS would probably let them but I don't think Sony would use Azure anyways, they would go elsewhere like Amazon imo.
 
How long would Sony continue to buy Azure though for their games? I mean, they shut down MLB servers after a year. At least with MS it's essentially guaranteed to run for a long time if not virtually ever because, well they own it and they generally keep their games servers up for ages.

I do agree if Sony wanted to use it MS would probably let them but I don't think Sony would use Azure anyways, they would go elsewhere like Amazon imo.

Probably, yeah. It was a hypothetical situation anyway. Sony hasn't publically expressed any interest in getting into this field.
 
I really enjoyed Crackdown 1 & 2, but to say I am apprehensive about this would be an understatement. If it works like they say it does, then it could be very impressive, but I need to see it in the final game before I will believe anything. What worries me even more though, is how this game seems to be dependent on a connection to the cloud. I mean, what if MS feels the game underperforms or that the servers just aren't worth the cost to keep up anymore? Then would we would all be left with a coaster, similar to MAG, but in this case a single-player title? I just don't like the thought of potentially being unable to use a single-player game that I purchased. That said, I look forward to what they will show in the future for this game and if everything will work as we expect.
 
I really enjoyed Crackdown 1 & 2, but to say I am apprehensive about this would be an understatement. If it works like they say it does, then it could be very impressive, but I need to see it in the final game before I will believe anything. What does worry me though is how the game is dependent on this connection to the cloud, I mean, what if MS feels the game underperforms or the servers just aren't worth the cost to keep up? Then would we would all be left with a coaster, similar to MAG, but in this case a single-player title? It just worries me that in the future I could potentially be unable to use a single-player game that I purchased.

Not to worry. Only the multiplayer is dependent on the connection to the cloud. Single-player will always work no matter what.
 
It would be pretty difficult for Sony to build an infrastructure similar to what MS has in place currently.

I think the infrastructure is the smaller issue, and is easily solved (assuming you can make it work financially). All you need to do is strike a good deal with a cloud service, or acquire enough servers and build something yourself (not trivial, but it's been so many times that Sony could easily do it, if they had the money/time).

I think the bigger, and potentially harder to solve, issue is being able to just duplicate what Cloudgine has been building with their software tools/engine. There's years of basic research and development that has gone into this, and it's not something that will just be built quickly (even if Sony has brilliant programmers, which I'm certain they do).

Even if Sony dedicated the necessary resources to make this happen, it'd still take years to get something up and running. And considering this is still a niche thing, I don't see that happening until/if this takes off (i.e. probably after Crackdown releases, since that'll be a big proof-of-concept for the entire industry to see if this is worthwhile tech that should be pursued heavily).
 
so its middleware it can run on any collection of servers: amazon, softlayer, google, azure. There is no competitve advantage in doing it because anyone even valve can develop or license it too. There is nothing special about Azure.
 
Almost impossible, give that Sony is a much smaller company than Microsoft. Still, I think Sony would rather figure out some solution rather than utilize their competitors' own tech.

Cloudgine is independent of MS, and this is being done with their technology on MS' Azure servers.

Sony could licence the engine, buy compute time on Google Cloud, AWS, GECs nascent IoT cloud service and do the same thing.
 
Not to worry. Only the multiplayer is dependent on the connection to the cloud. Single-player will always work no matter what.

I would assume so in most cases, but if the destructibility is solely dependent on the cloud then wouldn't a lack of connection render the game unplayable?
 
Funnily enough... you accidentally highlighted that this has gameplay (aka funz) benefits, which means it actually is changing da game.

Well done.

Sure, but when people were putting Sony fans gushing over PS4 specs down with statements like "strongest console never wins" "specs do not matter"... They were ignoring how computer processing power can be used in game enhancing ways ;).
 
I would assume so in most cases, but if the destructibility is solely dependent on the cloud then wouldn't a lack of connection render the game unplayable?

There will most likely still be destruction in SP, but dialed way down from MP so the console's CPU can handle it.
 
I would assume so in most cases, but if the destructibility is solely dependent on the cloud then wouldn't a lack of connection render the game unplayable?

The same level of destruction isn't in the single player, I assume. It would probably mess with the story and mission structure too much.

If there's destruction like this in single-player, it's probably mission specific in some way.
 
it was clickbait nonsense

It honestly distracted from the real discussion that was happening (which there has been some good discussion, if you could ignore the people who were here for obvious reasons (i.e. the thread title)).

I don't love this title, either, since it kind of belittles some of the real stuff this is doing, but at least maybe we can get back to meaningful discussion (maybe).
 
Sure, but when people were putting Sony fans gushing over PS4 specs down with statements like "strongest console never wins" "specs do not matter"... They were ignoring how computer processing power can be used in game enhancing ways ;).

Considering pretty much all examples I'd imagine you'd find of these sorts of comments, likely come from Digital Foundry threads of the exact same games running on both systems... it's not really the same thing. Not caring about 1080p vs 900p, isn't really the same as not caring about a completely new set of gameplay possibilities.

If the Xbox One and the PS4 were so incredibly different in power that for example the PS4 could offer a seamless open-world experience, whilst the Xbox One was having to load each area Dead Rising 1 style... then you probably wouldn't see many people dismissing the effect it has on their enjoyment. After all, we all bought new consoles for a reason, even if we don't care about it being the most powerful.
 
I would assume so in most cases, but if the destructibility is solely dependent on the cloud then wouldn't a lack of connection render the game unplayable?

Red Faction: Guerilla did destruction physics amazingly well for the PS360 generation (building collapsing on each other, buildings slowly collapsing on themselves due to damage and mechanical stress window shattering and all, etc...) and while this is pushing things to the next level Xbox One should be powerful enough to run a more advanced version of the Red Faction: Guerrilla physics engine when the cloud is not available for any reason.

Still, this is going to be a b13ch to debug, do not envy their coders' work... that much... as yes that is madly intriguing :).
 
The destruction certainly looks nice, but it looks somewhat 'off' to me, feels/looks just a tad bit too stiff.

Seems like the devs need to make concessions in the grahphics department though, while the destructions looked great the buildings themselves and the surrounding are in general looked more like something I'd expect from a PS3 game.
 
wait, what was the title before? and why was it changed?

Because the original title was ridiculous. The cloud does nothing to increase the strength of Xbox One. All it's doing is offloading more CPU-heavy work so more local resources are available for developers to use in other ways.
 
The destruction certainly looks nice, but it looks somewhat 'off' to me, feels/looks just a tad bit too stiff.

Seems like the devs need to make concessions in the grahphics department though, while the destructions looked great the buildings themselves and the surrounding are in general looked more like something I'd expect from a PS3 game.

I mean, it's a year+ out so I expect to see a lot of changes from a proof of concept build meant for showing what is possible with the engine and setup.
 
Seems like the devs need to make concessions in the grahphics department though, while the destructions looked great the buildings themselves and the surrounding are in general looked more like something I'd expect from a PS3 game.

so there are tradeoffs then?

well i guess it is to be expected
 
Glad to see a title change. It distracted from the real debate at hand about the implications of "Cloud"

Server side calcs do nothing to the innards of the console. Inventing that kind of rhetoric is essentially the same nonsense as the "cloud power makes Xbox 1 10 times more powerful" that we were hearing around launch.

It'll help online dependent games do bigger and better things, which is great, but that depends on how the game itself is built around those remote servers and has nothing to do with the console itself.
 
Glad to see a title change. It distracted from the real debate at hand about the implications of "Cloud"

Server side calcs do nothing to the innards of the console. Inventing that kind of rhetoric is essentially the same nonsense as the "cloud power makes Xbox 1 10 times more powerful" that we were hearing around launch.

It'll help online dependent games do bigger and better things, which is great, but that depends on how the game itself is built around those remote servers and has nothing to do with the console itself.

That's tantamount to saying that because a game exists doesn't fully utilize the potential of a platform reduces said potential. The "console itself" includes the platform which enables things like Crackdown's destruction. The new title is just as distracting since it belittles the very real potential that we can see realized in these demos.
 
Fun fact: Using Google on a original Wii triggers a server calculation that far exceeds the computational power of hundreds of xbox ones... and makes it the most powerful console ever created for that moment in time.
 
Fun fact: Using Google on a original Wii triggers a server calculation that far exceeds the computational power of hundreds of xbox ones... and makes it the most powerful console ever created for that moment in time.

While using Google can sometimes be funny, I fail to see the gaming context.
 
That's tantamount to saying that because a game exists doesn't fully utilize the potential of a platform reduces said potential. The "console itself" includes the platform which enables things like Crackdown's destruction. The new title is just as distracting since it belittles the very real potential that we can see realized in these demos.

Would those assets/servers be available to third parties, though? "Part of the platform" would imply that, unless it's something exclusive to Microsoft Studios.
 
Fun fact: Using Google on a original Wii triggers a server calculation that far exceeds the computational power of hundreds of xbox ones... and makes it the most powerful console ever created for that moment in time.

A raspberry PI will gladly out do that based on your qualifier.
 
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