Let's not jump ahead of ourselves now.
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"The Power of the Cloud" - what happened?
- Thread starter JohnnyFootball
- Start date
Let's not jump ahead of ourselves now.
One part seemingly being true (It's not proven yet, game is not out) does not discount how they were trying to push the cloud as a way to make up for the consoles lack of power compared to the PS4.
You have to remember the context of these PR statements. Around the middle of the launch between the two consoles and everyone talking about the specs.
I'm willing to believe a company that puts billions into the cloud and a developer that works exclusively with the cloud over neogaf posters that discount it because lol MS, lol PRspeak.
Not saying it does because I know how PR works, but I also really doubt they would push Crackdown if the cloud just didn't exist like several posters are saying. that's ridiculous.
The entire game is built around it and is being developed by Cloudgine...
Just like how Halo MCC launched flawlessly, since it's Microsofts most important IP, and MS being worth billions AND MS pioneered online console systems.
What does that have to do with anything? seriously.
Suzushiiro
Banned
What happened was that it was bullshit marketing spin that existed to justify the always-online DRM and downplay the power difference between XBone and PS4.
What about Forza Horizon 2s launch? or Sunset Overdrive launch? or Forza Motorsport 5s launch? or Titanfalls launch?
Master Chief Collection was clearly rushed for the holidays and had some major problems... but let's not pretend like its a trend with game releases on Xbox One.
It has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
Again?
It has nothing to do with the always-online DRM, the point of always-online DRM was to allow you to use your physical games as digital games and share your digital games instantly with anyone no matter the distance between you.
It might've been used to downplay a power difference but that doesn't mean server calculations are bullshit.
QuantumZebra
Member
Dyson Industries
Banned
Past performance as a predictor of future behaviour seems fair.
You trying to tie how well a game is going to do what its marketing says with MS's billions?
Unless your 'lolGAF vs MS's billions' comment meant something else.
I'll tell you why I'm skeptical. I would love to get a free boost for my games graphical output but it seems weird to me that Microsoft would provide me with extensive cloud processing, lots of R&D and extensive bandwidth for a product that sells at $60.
The billions they put in the cloud are for enterprise, same with the devs. Gaming is a low margin business that costs a lot because many people use it and it is prone to spikes at launch.
If Crackdown makes it with Azure features in and works for no extra cost I'll eat my crow, until then I'm very skeptical that the company that introduced charging for P2P will suddenly lower the Live margins to win a graphics race.
Live Free or Die
Banned
It got Sonny. Opps I meant Sunny.
And I am saying let's wait until they show, yk, the actual game and not test footage or CGI.
A single game launch now negates the launch of every other game this generation by Microsoft?
That test footage is the back bone of the game.
How does MCC collection being marketed have anything to do with server calculations marketing?
One game is a predictor of future behavior? What about Titanfall or Forza? Those both used the cloud and worked. MCC didn't, so where's the relevancy?
The co-developers exclusively use cloud computing and they're building the engine. How is that marketing? Pick another example.
And that changes nothing that I am saying.
Huh?
Well no obviously a basic tech demo with no details whatsoever and a name like "Cloudgine" is enough to prove that this is all real.
You're saying to wait until they show the game, then when we see the game you're going to say that we should wait to play it ourselves. I'm saying that it's clearly working in some form and they've shown us the backbone of the game running which is what matters for this discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsbaO1XGBU
They have test footage but people are still saying the cloud just doesn't exist. They have test footage and I'm saying the cloud does exist. Which is more logical considering it has been used in three games so far.
I'm still curious as to what info that guy sent Bish for him to verify the gifs and info he was posting.
I hope you're that skeptical towards literally everything you see regarding games in progress then.
3rdamention
Member
Maybe developers simply didn't take advantage of the Power of the Cloud? The narrative just a couple of years ago, before launch of the Xbox One, was definitely interesting.
Honestly, if developers were supposed to have access to these resources, "out of the gate" and we don't see games taking advantage of "four times the power of the Xbox One with the cloud" then it was probably as much PR speak than reality. There have been some interesting concepts such as Drivitars and Titanfall Grunt A.I., but nothing that pushes development to the degree that the March 2013 PR would have led you to believe.
Honestly, if developers were supposed to have access to these resources, "out of the gate" and we don't see games taking advantage of "four times the power of the Xbox One with the cloud" then it was probably as much PR speak than reality. There have been some interesting concepts such as Drivitars and Titanfall Grunt A.I., but nothing that pushes development to the degree that the March 2013 PR would have led you to believe.
Not arguing against the PR speak, but what big games have came out from launch to now that are exclusives/not tied to last-gen?
They had test footage of multi-cell computing wit ha PS3 and another device; they had a real time demo of tons of ducks and water sim on the ps2. Neither never made it to market in a game. A proof of concept and a commercial product are not the same things.
Were either of those tied to a game like the tech demo is to Crackdown? If not, then I don't see why they're comparable. If they said they were making a game, had a tech demo of what they wanted to do and then the game disappeared or came out without the tech, then yeah, I would say you have a point.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Oh my god, people still parroting the fanciful claims about cloud powered Crackdown?
Don't do it to yourself. There's absolutely nothing to suggest it will work even close to how that 'demo' worked. You have to remember the idea to expand that across an entire open world city where multiple buildings can be brought down in one go...it's never going to work as intended.
You've literally got your head in the clouds if you believe it will work and not destroy the CD IP once and for all.
Don't do it to yourself. There's absolutely nothing to suggest it will work even close to how that 'demo' worked. You have to remember the idea to expand that across an entire open world city where multiple buildings can be brought down in one go...it's never going to work as intended.
You've literally got your head in the clouds if you believe it will work and not destroy the CD IP once and for all.
While multiplied by the number of people playing the game at once, especially on launch.
We'll see when it comes out but as with Titanfall and Forza; what the PR talking heads like Major nelson are selling is not the same as what appears in game. The in game tech is extensions of very traditional things; while the PR talking heads are selling it as 'revolutions'.
For Titanfall it was bots. For forza it was bots that sort of drive like your friends.
I suppose you also totally bought the Star Wars demo and a big name like Molyneux as totally legit backing that Kinect was going to be some kind of futuristic shit?
I mean seriously. That tech demo is nothing special. The whole "omg look how this high end PC is struggling" is nonsense. Cloudgine has 12 employees (including admins) with most of them being totally unknown and not exactly then new Carmacks judging by their bio on their website. Yet somehow this is all going to be fulfilling the now 2 years old promises of mind blowing advances in graphics and physics thanks to a bunch of general purpose servers which are also (mostly) used for dedicated servers and MS office online.
Sure.
Just look at Kinect, that turned out to be everything they said it would be.
But you were in the thread talking about the tech wasn't needed and Crackdown shouldn't be used to demo a new tech. I don't recall you having this attitude in that thread, but who knows with you
First, DX12 has very, very little to do anything with cloud. Making their servers available has little to do with the feasibility from the development side (hey, any developer out there can just get Amazon and work it out themselves); it's all about decoupling a lot of shit inside the engine, having fallbacks, writing tons of platform specific code, debugging systems that have lack of documentation (I won't go too much into this for obvious reasons) and off course it really isn't free (expect for dedicated servers and other basic GaaS stuff).
Now, to get back on the latency. Yes, when we talk about the majority of real-time applications latency will be a problem. Yes, you can mask it in some cases like (like Crackdown does for the destruction), but it's applicable cases aren't exactly wide in variety. Let's take destruction for example, now you can't do any of the actual collisions with the cloud because of the latency and it having to be run parallel with the game objects. You can't use it render all the individual pieces since the cloud can't determine draw orders, or render buffers or anything like that. So in the end you get the cloud-calculated destruction which is no doubt impressive and an upgrade from the local ones, but it's not something that is easily feasible for cross-platform developers since it's a big investment on development side and it's other applications aren't easy to find.
I'd like to talk about an actual example case of how the cloud would work for a small developer, but I need some sleep and we have bigger milestone coming up.
Pretty sweet proof of concept. When it's working on remote servers on a larger scale I will be pretty excited.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that they just overestimated the average Xboner's internet connection, and have found that it's not feasible to achieve what they promised until that improves.
Or they were always just full of shit.
Or they were always just full of shit.
Not likely to be what you and Rembrandt are peddling. It'll be a shoulder shrug feature like bots in titanfall and 'divertards' in Forza.
That was a problem with it; as it did drive like your friends and your friends likely drove sloppy it meant the bots drove sloppy.
3rdamention
Member
Who knows, I am not going to get into lists necessarily. This link was 2 years ago, so maybe some will come out this year that take advantage of 4 times the CPU power and storage space thanks to the cloud. Time will tell.
I don't necessarily think being cross gen would be as big of a difference as you are saying. They still could have used some of these cloud resources for the Xbox One or the 360. The cloud isnt exclusive to the Xbox One. They had Drivitars in Forza on 360.
They take statistics on how your friends drive and simulate it in the bots by attacking the turns in the similar ways. The consequence was they were all poorish drivers which smashed into other cars in the corners as most average players do. Thus the 'drivertard'. They have since adjusted it to do that less but that was the 'cloud' feature.
King Gilga
Member
Aren't dedicated servers cloud servers?
I dunno why everyone's hating on you, PS5 really doesn't roll of the tongue like PSP/1/2/3/4 do. And it looks weird.
I dunno why everyone's hating on you, PS5 really doesn't roll of the tongue like PSP/1/2/3/4 do. And it looks weird.
m_shortpants
Member
I assume bandwidth can be a bottle neck? Are they using Azure compute or something?
Pathfinder
Member
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