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Jonathan Blow Criticizes MSs Claim of Increasing Servers to 300K, Calls It A Lie!
- Thread starter Miles Quaritch
- Start date
RamzaIsCool
The Amiga Brotherhood
I wonder that too. Braid was a Xbox360 exclusive for a year, so what happened that it has come to this point.
that was one of the stupid fluff numbers they were throwing out that pissed me off so much
5 billion transistors in the SoC was another one, just say which IP you're using dammit
i'm amazed that they managed to say so little during their reveal
CassidyIzABeast
Member
He wants all the money from his game but Microsoft requires that you get a publisher.
Kenshin001
Member
Well he is calling MS liars. Doesn't sound promising.
BibiMaghoo
Member
Blow is quickly changing from outspoken dev, to bitter, sour grapes dev.
When a person attacks someone else consistently, their claim begin to lose validity and appear as a person grudge.
Other devs need to start speaking up, Blow needs to take a back seat for a while.
When a person attacks someone else consistently, their claim begin to lose validity and appear as a person grudge.
Other devs need to start speaking up, Blow needs to take a back seat for a while.
I really doubt this as well. I don't see them offloading anything that's needed for the rendering on a server.
even if it's possible there's no way any multiplatform game would take advantage of it
Winterfang
Banned
How would he even know?
the_korben
Member
It really is crazy to think that "the cloud" would enhance our games by calculating physics and so on. All you can have "a cloud" do is to provide some background calculations that don't need to be updated too often or delivered in a critical low-lag manner (think about WOW and how it works in such an environment). Modern shooters can't manage more than maybe 64 players without loading off some of the more relevant calculations to the clients because of latency issues.
A physics engine runs at maybe half the frame rate of the game and would probably need to keep track of thousands of objects in modern games. The same would be true for any kind of realistic graphical effect that needs to run at a few tens of frames per second.
What could work in "a cloud"? Perhaps the rudimentary AI of unimportant NPCs in an open world game using lots and lots of predictive stuff and interpolation on the client side. Maybe the celestial dynamics of thousands of slowly moving and rotating bodies in a big-ass real-time solar-system simulator. Maybe some kind of global economics simulation. Anyway - most of these would be things that can be easily simulated with smoke and mirrors as well. The player would rarely feel a difference.
A physics engine runs at maybe half the frame rate of the game and would probably need to keep track of thousands of objects in modern games. The same would be true for any kind of realistic graphical effect that needs to run at a few tens of frames per second.
What could work in "a cloud"? Perhaps the rudimentary AI of unimportant NPCs in an open world game using lots and lots of predictive stuff and interpolation on the client side. Maybe the celestial dynamics of thousands of slowly moving and rotating bodies in a big-ass real-time solar-system simulator. Maybe some kind of global economics simulation. Anyway - most of these would be things that can be easily simulated with smoke and mirrors as well. The player would rarely feel a difference.
Miles Quaritch
Member
I mentioned this in the OP. It seems like he's guessing/assuming more than speaking from an informed position.
Basically, he doesn't know and is throwing it out there to see if it sticks.
I pointed out that I though the servers were likely VM's in that ridiculous "XBL is killing the environment" thread. Slightly disingenuous of MS to give the impression they were physical servers, but what the hell difference does it make? If XBL service is improved, that's the only thing that matters.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
He probably knows more than you.
CrunchinJelly
formerly cjelly
This guy is quickly coming across as someone who is bitter they didn't get first dibs on a dev kit and included in an intro video.
Some of these indie devs should really just concentrate on making their own games rather than slinging mud all the time.
Some of these indie devs should really just concentrate on making their own games rather than slinging mud all the time.
What about those that buy windows, office or xbox's in general? See I widened your scope a little there bud.
Woffls
Member
Microsoft have a lot of physical servers, but I doubt 300k of them would be exclusively for Xbox. Maybe they are virtual and maybe they are shared with their other cloud services like Azure and Office. We just don't now the details yet.
Either way, increasing the number of servers on Xbox Live by 20x (?) doesn't really mean much to me as a gamer. Does this mean my Collar Duty will have more woofs?
Either way, increasing the number of servers on Xbox Live by 20x (?) doesn't really mean much to me as a gamer. Does this mean my Collar Duty will have more woofs?
Metalmurphy
Member
None of his claims have lost validity. They are pretty spot on. Most of the "cloud" PR bullshit is nothing but fiction.
Wouldn't devs making XBO online games know? Maybe he spoke to someone.
I have a question, and it might be stupid. MS compared the new number to the current number, was the current number definitely physical servers? I think it's only a lie if they're not comparing apples to apples.
Wow, never thought I'd see gifs from THAT movie.
It wouldn't surprise me if he still can't get a devkit. There's certainly some bad blood there.
will it be improved though? i'm sure they were already running xbl on the windows server os, all this means is that they're moving those os images over to the azure infrastructure
they're also adding a standardized way for developers to access cloud compute for their games but it's an open question as to whether that will be useful at all
PuppetMaster
Member
They did name drop their Azure service. Which is a virtualized hosting service. So it is basically confirmed.
Theres a difference between online multiplayer and single player. For multiplayer you have to be online. For single player you shouldnt have to be.
la flama blanca
Banned
where's dopeyfish at
media conspiracy fueled by the gaf underground.
Ace Harding
Member
Jonathan Blow literally doesn't know what he's talking about.
PsihoPerihelion
Member
By now we can all assume that PS4 is the only home console receiving a port of The Witness.
The one game that would actually be best on Wii U.
gaming_noob
Member
Can you save that for PM please? You've been looking for him in various threads now.
Personally, I'm glad Blow is calling out MS for their constant lies.
Or you could take him at his word, which is: he doesn't like giant corporations lying to their customers.
The Bookerman
Member
Ah, so he is jealous, right?
Yeah there's no chance a confirmed developer would have any idea what he is on about.
Blow is just full of shit. The "more computing power than the whole of 1999" claim already proves that those aren't virtual servers but instead 300.000 actual servers running dozens of virtual servers each. And it's not that hard to believe either when Azure currently uses much more than 1.000.000 servers for what it does right now (with as much as 400.000 servers in Ireland alone). I hoped with the death of F5 the "my exclusive partner is better than yours" talk would've stopped but here we are and exclusive developers are still talking shit about other platforms they haven't even worked on.
Everything Microsoft talked about was too nebulous. This cloud computing used as a supplement sounds like smoke and mirrors. It sounds great when they say it can make the system 40x more powerful. But if games rely on it too much, or require it, what happens when you, the network, or the servers go offline? I shudder to think the game may be unplayable, but if you're using it to process basic functions in the game engine, that seems like a huge possibility.
Google runs the second and third biggest websites in the world plus tons of web and android apps like Gmail and Google Drive. Youtube alone streams 4-5 billion hours of video a month. Xbox Live is a tiny service in comparison. We're talking low tens of millions of users vs over a billion users.
Neuromancer
Member
What he doesn't realize is, virtual or not, it's still infinite power.
Blow has been shitting on MS for years before he signed with Sony.
exactly how much computing power did the world have in 1999, how are you measuring that, and how are you calculating how much power there is per physical azure server?
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
If I'm not mistaken, they actually didn't. Maybe that's the problem.
They should have sent him a Golden Xbone.
Same as you then?
You are guessing he doesn't know anything. A game developer who doesn't know anything about developing games.
Interesting.
Miles Quaritch
Member
He accused MS of lying back in 2008? Pretty sure that's how long he's been unhappy with MS and why he's so outspoken towards them.
