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Xbox Cloud Gaming is seeing increased queue times as demand surges
- Thread starter Spyxos
- Start date
Rambone
Member
I like Xcloud, it's particularly useful on my Series S which doesn't have a lot of internal drive space. My only complaint with xcloud at the moment is the visual quality, it's pretty shit and hasn't improved. Stadia was great while it was in its prime and now GFN is delivering the goods so long as I connect to a decent server. I was kind of surprised when I started hitting a queue on Xcloud but I guess I take it as a good sign that it's getting usage and hopefully some more attention.
a multicultural team of v
Member
Well I don't really know why not, it's just raw compute power, especially since we have absolutely no idea what kind of game this is... But I didn't necessarily mean that, I just meant that the game likely won't need to run off the Series X blades or whatever the hell they are called that they have serving Xbox games. That is the limiting factor - you literally need one physical console per person playing. If this game isn't designed like a traditional game they can be much more flexible with how it is hosted.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
I got right in several times I tried today. Maybe it’s an issue for the select unlucky few.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how this news is a good thing.
Not good for users
Good for the provider if the ‘demand surges’ part in the thread title is correct.
Superkewl
Gold Member
Having used both Stadia and GeForce NOW quite a bit, GFN was better. Stadia would have brief lag spikes. Not a lot, like a second or two every 15 minutes or so, but GFN worked flawlessly, even on multiplayer games. At least that was my experience.
EDIT: GFN was on a premium sub, so no queues obviously.
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StereoVsn
Member
I got to say that normally I have had very little success with cloud gaming when doing business travel since Hotel WiFi is terrible.
It can be okish in a decent 5G connection, but that also has a lot of variables.
Goalus
Member
Yes, that makes sense. Queue times are increasing because there are less and less users in the queue.
TrebleShot
Member
Noticed this the other day when playing FH5 on steam deck was quite surprised. 30 seconds at the time.
Res is low but on edge browser they added a clarity booster option that works really well.
It’s a cool way to play games. Especially ones with large file sizes like FH5
Res is low but on edge browser they added a clarity booster option that works really well.
It’s a cool way to play games. Especially ones with large file sizes like FH5
crackajack
Member
Is this solely a MS thing or does anyone have queues on PS Plus too?
Never really waited on Plus ever, no PS3, no PS4 game. Usually takes about as much time as booting up my own console to get into any game. Only occasionally I get a message about "rebuilding database" which surprisingly takes almost no time, when the previous gamer's session crashed I guess.
Don't remember details about Onlive but trying Stadia, iirc only twice, worked without any wait time, but that was of course due to lack of users.
Plus, as soon they include PS5, will probably be more interesting for a fair comparison. Demand for older gens is certainly lower than for fresher games, even though the difference between PS4 streams and PS5 streams must imho be even closer than the respective native versions, and the whole next gen progress kinda evaporates.
Wasn't MS cloud market share higher than Sony's? So they have to have more capacity, but still not enough, while Sony has maybe an equal number of units but demand is just not as high on their service for some reason?
Never really waited on Plus ever, no PS3, no PS4 game. Usually takes about as much time as booting up my own console to get into any game. Only occasionally I get a message about "rebuilding database" which surprisingly takes almost no time, when the previous gamer's session crashed I guess.
Don't remember details about Onlive but trying Stadia, iirc only twice, worked without any wait time, but that was of course due to lack of users.
Plus, as soon they include PS5, will probably be more interesting for a fair comparison. Demand for older gens is certainly lower than for fresher games, even though the difference between PS4 streams and PS5 streams must imho be even closer than the respective native versions, and the whole next gen progress kinda evaporates.
Wasn't MS cloud market share higher than Sony's? So they have to have more capacity, but still not enough, while Sony has maybe an equal number of units but demand is just not as high on their service for some reason?
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Fredrik
Member
GFN is great since it’s PC versions, no forced 30fps.
But I had the highest tier sub when Cyberpunk launched and there were queues, long ones. Haven’t tried the current highest tier, still have the $5 founders for life sub, so can’t say if queues are gone now.
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CrustyBritches
Gold Member
GTAV did this.
Even so, I tested at 1m30s earlier around 6pm. Then later it was 15secs around 10pm. Prior to GTA V my wait times were usually sub-20secs. It's going to depend on the region and server capacity.
THE DUCK
voted poster of the decade by bots
Imagine pretending to own something that someone else created, licensing it for personal use, then pretending you own it.
Oh wait........
That said, I'm not a huge cloud proponent, I've had a few good gaming sessions but it will never replace local gaming for me unless it really improves in consistency and latency.
But this recent revelation of long wait times doesn't seem.very scientific, maybe they took.down a whole group for service, or are having some sort of temporary issue. Seems like demand would be the least likely reason.
Mephisto40
Member
You mean they've closed a bunch of servers because it's a service nobody uses, and now the few people who do use it have started to notice longer queues due to the servers being reduced
Starbuck2907
Member
Could be increased demand. Most up to date Samsung tvs now let you play Xbox through the cloud using just the tv and a controller. That’s a LOT of tvs. My 2 or 3 old Samsung just had it patched in a few months ago. I can see kids who can’t afford a console using it through their tvs.
Dr.Morris79
Gold Member
If no one uses it you get no queues
systemr123
Member
I don’t think the queue times come from surging demand, I actually think MS is trying to save on resources and money by having less infrastructure readily available, because they see less demand in general.
This problem never occurred during the Gamepass years yet and I can guarantee the surge of usage was much bigger before than now. where Gamepass subs stall and maybe soon will even start to dwindle.
This problem never occurred during the Gamepass years yet and I can guarantee the surge of usage was much bigger before than now. where Gamepass subs stall and maybe soon will even start to dwindle.
Fredrik
Member
Lol true. But still, queues makes it unusable for me. I have a small window of opportunity at the evening to play games, can’t be stuck waiting in a queue at that point.If no one uses it you get no queues
Bojji
Member
With physical games you can at least do whatever you want with the item you bought, play, sell, destroy - you choose.
Could gaming... It's the ultimate corporate dream, it's even worse than digitall downloads, consumer is the biggest sucker.
Dr.Morris79
Gold Member
Oh god no, I agree, I get enough standing in line out and about, couldnt think of anything worse than having it when I want to game, awful concept.
Miyazaki’s Slave
Gold Member
Speaking of Fortnite, another major game was recently added to Xbox Game Pass' cloud library in the form of Grand Theft Auto V. Last time GTAV was added, the service saw a surge in popularity which resulted in occasional queues. Although it's unconfirmed if GTAV is directly responsible, many users on Xbox Cloud Gaming communities are blaming GTAV for this recent, much larger influx of queues, which is hitting Microsoft's cloud gaming systems in various regions.
Even off-peak, I've found myself in situations where a cloud game can take anywhere up to 5 minutes to get going. Before writing this article, I sought to test it out for myself, and nabbed a 3-minute queue time followed by a further 3-4 minutes of "Sorry, this is taking longer than we expected" queue timing. Some users on reddit have reported queues of anywhere up to an hour though, which surely strikes me as a bug, but it's hard to know exactly what the situation is per region.
It has been suggested to me that some of the delay could be caused by how Xbox Game Pass handles game delivery on cloud these days — as the library has grown, Microsoft doesn't keep every single cloud game installed on the servers at all times, opting instead to spin up nearby servers on the fly with the specific game you requested.
Microsoft is also offloading some of the GPU cycles from Xbox Cloud Gaming to A.I. processing services when they're not in use as part of Microsoft's big ChatGPT / Bing Chat push. The AI processing may also be inducing queues, as servers flip priorities around. It's a downside, but it also crucially extends the business viability of the service in a world where Apple and Google won't allow Microsoft to monetize on their platforms.
Xbox Cloud Gaming is seeing increased queue times as demand surges
People are blaming GTAV, but is something more going on?www.windowscentral.com
I have also had frequent waits of 10 minutes in recent weeks.
I would believe they are offload unused cloud gaming resources to their AI efforts. After 3 years (iirc) of loosing 1.5 million dollars a day building, maintaining, and operating their AI compute infrastructure they have to be focused on bring that closer to at least a net zero +/- per day.
Topher
Gold Member
An Xbox game isn't going to run anywhere but on an Xbox server in Azure. Yeah, it is a limiting factor, but that's why Microsoft has been putting so many Xbox blade servers into their datacenters.
Gamer_By_Proxy
Member
Nothing like a 60min wait when you have an hour to play games.
As someone that can pretty much only game right now when a baby goes to sleep.
This is beyond unacceptable.
As someone that can pretty much only game right now when a baby goes to sleep.
This is beyond unacceptable.
a multicultural team of v
Member
We don't know it is an Xbox console game. Based on various interviews over the years I am leaning towards it being some sort of mobile, or mixed platform, game with a heavy emphasis on video streaming and likely some sort of augmented reality spin. I don't think this is a normal game at all, hence why I am saying this might not need an Xbox or Xbox blade servers. To be fair I have no idea and am just speculating, but I don't think Kojima cares about the cloud in order to make a normal game but streamed - he is attempting something different.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
So did they prioritize the server blades, or did they not?
- If they did, then why are queues still a thing?
- If they did not, then why are they losing Xbox console market share and not selling enough Series X consoles?
crackajack
Member
Cloud, much like digital, isn't about owning or collecting or selling some boxes though, it is about enjoying stuff for the moment. A very different approach, and in the case of cloud certainly not ideal and not equal in its essence due to lag, while providing benefits. Discs though barely have any real function at all in modern systems anyway- so plastic waste could be the counter point to considering it a valuable thing if you are not reselling it. But very much like a cinema, opera, theater ticket, lying on a beach of your favorite vacation destination or a glass of expensive wine etc. whatever floats your boat, not owning stuff, can be valuable to some/many.
Letting you "own" stuff is equally a corporate dream. Consumerism in various forms existed before digital products even where a thing at all. Needing 2 consoles, a hybrid, a PC and mobile to enjoy all existing games, is a corporate dream too. Only having one powerful home device and one mobile would in theory be better, but since mono or duopoles are not ideal, it would also be a corporate dream.
Ultimately anyone must decide what form of product is worth whatever amount for them and corporations must try to milk us.
TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
I thought MS was supposed to be a juggernaut of cloud computing back-end infrastructure, with infinite data center nodes that can spin up/down on demand.
avin
Member
Thanks, it's interesting that games like FH5 are being played over cloud. In my experience, that was just not fun. These people either have much better connects than I do, or they're willing to put up with a worse experience.
avin
swaffles23
Member
CuteFaceJay
Member
Whole lot of poor people who can't afford the hardware.
fastest finger
Member
Thank God they sacrificed all those Series X sales in the name of server blades.
ReBurn
Gold Member
Why did you think that?
Spyxos
Gold Member
Because the hardware is probably too expensive. And you can use Xcloud almost everywhere.
Morrie’s wig shop
Member
Back in my day you had to find someone who had a desktop or laptop and hopefully they had some form of internerweb pick some movies and they would send these dvd disks through the mail and if they didn’t have the movie, it would be placed in a queue for days maybe even weeks……..
Gotta start somewhere
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Another reason why cloud gaming is absolute bullshit. I want to play my games whenever the fuck I want to play them.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I did the Halo MCC weekly quest over Cloud. It's improved leaps and bounds over the last 2 years since I got a SX. Obviously not as precision perfect as playing natively but I was able to finish the quest (get 5 kills) very comfortably and then some, in the first round.
Cloud is good for testing stuff quickly but obvi if its something I want to play longer than 5 minutes, it makes all the sense to just download it.
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Ev1L AuRoN
Member
Never happened to me, but I would be pissed if a service I paid for isn't available right away.
THE DUCK
voted poster of the decade by bots
I've been all digital for over a decade and have seen nothing but ease of access, fast loading, and no headaches. Please feel free to explain how this has made me or anyone else like me a sucker. So I can't play my old games when I am dead?
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IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
We really don't know how much demand has "surged" at all.
It can be an incredibly "local" thing for xCloud to need queueing; they aren't just using their Azure DCs they are renting lots of DC space and having to spread their blades thin.
And it's just a total money pit for them as well, they basically said most xCloud usage is just GPU members occasionally using it as a 2nd way to play games they could otherwise play on the XBox's they own. So they probably aren't itching too hard to fill DCs to the brim since it's not really a source of revenue, just a huge source of cost.
Cloud gaming is a failure of a business model IMO.
It can be an incredibly "local" thing for xCloud to need queueing; they aren't just using their Azure DCs they are renting lots of DC space and having to spread their blades thin.
And it's just a total money pit for them as well, they basically said most xCloud usage is just GPU members occasionally using it as a 2nd way to play games they could otherwise play on the XBox's they own. So they probably aren't itching too hard to fill DCs to the brim since it's not really a source of revenue, just a huge source of cost.
Cloud gaming is a failure of a business model IMO.
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