Microsoft on Xbox One: some things haven't worked, but we are learning

[trooper11]

I do, but as I said I am willing to be proven wrong by evidence. But I mean at that point it would be evidence, how could I argue against it then? :p

 

 

I think I laid out my points pretty clearly.  MS has not promised the moon with the cloud stuff. The Eurogamer article backs that up, going into detail about how MS sees possible uses for the server hardware along with what they dont see as possible.  Heck, MS isn't even sure yet what all could be done with it.

 

So there are two parts at play:

 

1. Marketing

2. Reality

 

I can understand you being upset with 1 becuase you feel it gave customers an unfair expectation.  I happen to think that what was more damaging was the people online that insisted on blowing up the feature as more than it was going to be, far beyond the marketing MS used. 

 

I dont get being upset about 2 though.  MS laid out technical details that are not fiction.  The 'cloud' is real, something MS is offering to developers to use as they see fit.  That means some developers are only using it for dedicated servers, some are using it to number crunch things tied to AI.  What developers won't be doing is suddenly have games that look several times better then using the X1 alone, or suddenly be more powerful when it comes to gpu vs the ps4.  That will not be changed by the 'cloud'.

 

Of course the 'value' of the servers will be played out over years of use and will change as more developers play around with it. 

 

MS should definitely be leading with real games that show possible uses whenever possible, but the mere fact that they are allowing all developers access to that hardware without a cost to them is a good thing.  At the end of the day, that means less barriers to all developers.  Again, I think MS should not have made such it a public feature on its own.  It got taken to extremes and now the entire idea behind it is dismissed.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I think I laid out my points pretty clearly.  MS has not promised the moon with the cloud stuff. The Eurogamer article backs that up, going into detail about how MS sees possible uses for the server hardware along with what they dont see as possible.  Heck, MS isn't even sure yet what all could be done with it.

 

So there are two parts at play:

 

1. Marketing

2. Reality

 

I can understand you being upset with 1 becuase you feel it gave customers an unfair expectation.  I happen to think that what was more damaging was the people online that insisted on blowing up the feature as more than it was going to be, far beyond the marketing MS used. 

 

I dont get being upset about 2 though.  MS laid out technical details that are not fiction.  The 'cloud' is real, something MS is offering to developers to use as they see fit.  That means some developers are only using it for dedicated servers, some are using it to number crunch things tied to AI.  What developers won't be doing is suddenly have games that look several times better then using the X1 alone, or suddenly be more powerful when it comes to gpu vs the ps4.  That will not be changed by the 'cloud'.

 

Of course the 'value' of the servers will be played out over years of use and will change as more developers play around with it. 

 

MS should definitely be leading with real games that show possible uses whenever possible, but the mere fact that they are allowing all developers access to that hardware without a cost to them is a good thing.  At the end of the day, that means less barriers to all developers.  Again, I think MS should not have made such it a public feature on its own.  It got taken to extremes and now the entire idea behind it is dismissed.

 

Another issue you have is the crux of what gamers argue about online revolves more so around tangible graphics results and what they can see. Telling gamers mindbending number crunching is going on behind the scenes and matchmaking is down 85% on the latency front, will get you many looks of  :wacko:

 

You've already said it yourself about graphics improving above, but there was such hysteria during the spec wars after E3, that MS were tactically using buzzwords surrounding the cloud to counteract all the articles about "8GB GDDR5/GPU rumours" etc. When you have no Digital Foundry, no actual console or games released you can pretty much defend to your hearts content with buzzwords. There were no factual benchmarks last year.

 

Then you had Sony's own dog of the time saying

 

"To the extent that it's possible to do computing in the Cloud, PlayStation 4 can do computing in the Cloud," Cerny says. "We do some things... matchmaking is done in the Cloud, and it works very well. If we think about things that don't work well... trying to boost the quality of the graphics, that won't work well in the Cloud."

 

 

which upset a lot of people as rightly or wrongly the Cloud was being used heavily last year by gamers as a bridge gap in tangible graphics - As I spoke about in my opening argument to this post.

 

So yes I do think there is much that can be done by remote processing, but the term, "the Cloud" is so tainted right now when it gets brought up I can't help scoff at it. Soo many people believe it's something it's not.

[GotBored]

What's wrong with the cloud?  You can spin up game servers on demand, without having to use P2P technologies or have companies manage dedicated servers.

 

And that's just one super basic benefit.

 

If you have bots they can be run on the server side so they also don't take away from the console's resources.

 

Because everyone else used to call it 'dedicated servers' before, now its the buzzword 'cloud'.

 

And people for some reason think its magical and special, when its something that's been done for years before on PC and even on consoles.

 

They hyped it up, made it sound like it was going to increase the graphics capability of the Xbox One somehow and you'll find it on this forum were people were saying the PS4 raw graphics power didn't matter because Xbox One had the 'cloud'. Turns out the cloud did nothing and was just a buzzword to describe dedicated servers..

 

So I guess people cringe when they still use the buzzword. Why not just call it dedicated servers?

[trooper11]

You've already said it yourself about graphics improving above, but there was such hysteria during the spec wars after E3, that MS were tactically using buzzwords surrounding the cloud to counteract all the articles about "8GB GDDR5/GPU rumours" etc. When you have no Digital Foundry, no actual console or games released you can pretty much defend to your hearts content with buzzwords. There were no factual benchmarks last year.

Again, your pointing out how people reacted for MS' buzzwords. MS never claimed that the server hardware was a substitue for a local gpu. MS truly believes that offering all of this server hardware to developers will result in features that gamers will want to use and that over time developers will use it more and more. So they made a bet on server tech in order to just give that to developers, at no additional cost.

They believed that this was worth pushing publically becuase Sony was not at the time, nor has it yet, dedicating so much server hardware that any developer could have access to. So naturally, they wanted it to be a differentiating feature.

What MS failed to do was respond to every unreasonable claim that made it look like 'the cloud' was more than it was. They could have used the term 'server infrastructure' instead of cloud I guess, but cloud is a known term to the public, so I guess that is why they chose that term.

 

Then you had Sony's own dog of the time saying

 

 

which upset a lot of people as rightly or wrongly the Cloud was being used heavily last year by gamers as a bridge gap in tangible graphics - As I spoke about in my opening argument to this post.

Of course Sony jumped on that point, it was served to them on a silver platter. The bs that was being spread was the perfect thing to tap into pr wise. Sony has been hitting those moments very well.

And again, all of that is unreasonable reactions to what MS actually said leading up to the launch. Believe me, I was arguing about this well before launch, before I came to this forum. I ran into too many that were spouting off the idea that 'the cloud' was going to allow the X1 to be as powerful or more powerful than the ps4 in the gpu department. I tried my best to set the record straight, but you know how bad people can be on the internet.

So yes I do think there is much that can be done by remote processing, but the term, "the Cloud" is so tainted right now when it gets brought up I can't help scoff at it. Soo many people believe it's something it's not.

Ironically, I think MS chose to use 'cloud' becuase it was already a known word to the general public. Instead, now its tainted becuase of the console warriors.

Luckily, you and I (and many others here) know the truth. Some just won't see it.

 

 

Because everyone else used to call it 'dedicated servers' before, now its the buzzword 'cloud'.

 

And people for some reason think its magical and special, when its something that's been done for years before on PC and even on consoles.

 

They hyped it up, made it sound like it was going to increase the graphics capability of the Xbox One somehow and you'll find it on this forum were people were saying the PS4 raw graphics power didn't matter because Xbox One had the 'cloud'. Turns out the cloud did nothing and was just a buzzword to describe dedicated servers..

 

So I guess people cringe when they still use the buzzword. Why not just call it dedicated servers?

Your exactly right, too many people online tried to claim this was about better graphics, even in the face of MS claiming the opposite. It was rediculous.

You can't really call it dedicated servers though since developers can use it for more than just hosting say multiplayer games.

I would suggest calling it a server infrastructure or platform that developers can tap into.

[GotBored]

Your exactly right, too many people online tried to claim this was about better graphics, even in the face of MS claiming the opposite. It was rediculous.

You can't really call it dedicated servers though since developers can use it for more than just hosting say multiplayer games.

I would suggest calling it a server infrastructure or platform that developers can tap into.

 

dedicated servers have been used for more than just hosting multiplayer games for a long time.

[trooper11]

dedicated servers have been used for more than just hosting multiplayer games for a long time.

yeah, but the general gaming public that knows the term 'dedicated server' would only link it to hosting multiplayer games.

the general term dedicated servers in fact does cover every use a server could have, but if we are looking for a more accurate term for the general user that would not be confused with a term already in use, I would suggest server platform or infrastructure.

[1337ish]

The other benefit with 300k servers in a cloud environment is that it allows developers to very quickly spool up more capacity at launch time for games rather than having to wait it out for things to die down as is the case in many launches. The PSN network like you say is in the cloud but it was overloaded at launch for a while as well as having the store offline at points, that is server capacity issue and the delay getting it working again could be mitigated by time it takes to spool up more hardware (or order it)

Microsoft already run a massive cloud setup, Azure which will give them a natural edge because they have serious experience with running cloud infrastructure in a HA environment (not to say its flawless but neither is Amazon or Rackspace clouds tbh).

[Jarrichvdv]

I am a bit dissapointed how he glossed over the resolution issue and didn't say anything about the rumoured SDK improvements for it! Maybe it was just a rumour and nothing will improve?

Maybe because customers are not supposed to be concerned about the SDK's the developers use? It's doesn't mean anything to them.

My mom is not going to buy a Windows Phone over an iPhone because developers use the subjectively better SDK Visual Studio instead of Xcode. It doesn't matter. The end result is more important.

[BajiRav]

Saying the Xbox One is fully capable of 1080p60 is misleading, its like saying the PS3 was capable of 1080p just because Wipeout and a handful of others ran in that resolution.

 

If less than half your games can run in that resolution then it is not capable at all.

 

The thing with the 1080p controversy is that the best looking "next-gen" game is still Ryse and it runs on Xbox One at 900p. 1080p/60fps doesn't magically mean best looking game, which is what the PS4 crowd is going for. (only considering released games)

 

dedicated servers have been used for more than just hosting multiplayer games for a long time.

Not on consoles or specifically Xbox games in general.

 

Sorry trooper but MS have made many stupid claims about the cloud dating back quite a while, the one above from May 2013 - http://www.develop-online.net/news/microsoft-cloud-makes-xbox-one-four-times-more-powerful/0114948

 

If you buy that, it was apparently able to be done "out of the gate"....

 

Don't get yourself stressed out anyway buddy, my thoughts on the cloud can simply be different from yours. I personally think it's a crock of #### buzzword, as bad as any at the start of the generation, "Power of the CELL", etc, etc. The balls in MS' court to prove those laughing at the cloud wrong, not for those laughing to question "the power" or their opinions. We go by what we see, evidence, facts, research, not by promises, buzzwords or grandiose claims of 3x the power.

Uh...cloud is an industry buzzword,  wait till you hear about "internet of things". I work in a comparatively boring (read enterprise) software company and even we are switching to using cloud in all marketing.

 

You got proof that any of those claims (3x the resources in the cloud) are wrong? The Xbox Live Compute platform (i.e. cloud) is real and will be used extensively in Titanfall.

 

Microsoft is hosting the game's servers for the launch on both Xbox and Windows PC versions. "The most important thing for us on launch day is making sure that Microsoft's Xbox Live compute platform can scale up as high as we need it to," said Jon 'Slothy' Shiring, the engineer in charge of Titanfall's smooth launch. "We had the alpha, but that was fairly small. Alpha proved that the tech works. Beta, the thing we wanted to test was what happens when you scale it really high, see what breaks and then fix that so we don't have to find out on launch day.

"People are expecting the game to have problems, and I want to make sure that it doesn't. I want to do everything I can to make sure that it launches well. The Xbox Live compute platform is all brand new. Forza used it a little bit, but they weren't as reliant on it as we are. The game is completely reliant on it. If it's down, nobody can play."

Source: http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/21/5433928/what-did-the-titanfall-beta-achieve

 

From the sounds of it, that's more than a buzzword.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

That guy manages to say 2 paragraphs without actually saying anything. Point and case for any PR mouthpiece talking about the cloud these days, talk about the amazing stuff they can do, not actually post anything in-depth to really back that up.

Titanfall isn't exactly a poster boy for any cloud claims anyway considering its not a technical marvel and theres already posts on Neowin let alone the web about dumb AI. Any dedicated server chat or matchmaking, isn't anything new to MP gaming. And finally its coming to the PC and Xbox 360 as well, clouds must be BC.

He's also acting like games haven't been able to "scale big" until now. Erm, MAG had 256 players running at once, it must of been running on space clouds.

[BajiRav]

That guy manages to say 2 paragraphs without actually saying anything. Point and case for any PR mouthpiece talking about the cloud these days, talk about the amazing stuff they can do, not actually post anything in-depth to really back that up.

Titanfall isn't exactly a poster boy for any cloud claims anyway considering its not a technical marvel and theres already posts on Neowin let alone the web about dumb AI. Any dedicated server chat or matchmaking, isn't anything new to MP gaming. And finally its coming to the PC and Xbox 360 as well, clouds must be BC.

He's also acting like games haven't been able to "scale big" until now. Erm, MAG had 256 players running at once, it must of been running on space clouds.

It's not a tech article in the first place and even if they printed the entire source code, you or me still won't understand a thing.

The dedicated server platform is new on Xbox Live. There is nothing new in PS4 either, heck its GPU is like 2 years old already - you still bought it.

 

Cloud computing is real, no matter how much deep people bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. It is a buzzword and is misused a lot but doesn't mean it has no meaning.

[George P Global Moderator]

Why the nitpicking over buzzwords? Call it dedicated servers or call it the cloud or some mix of the two, it's a real thing and is being used today. Forza uses it as we all know for the AI, Titanfall uses it even more though, no way around this fact.

 

In titanfall you have the MP dedicated server side, much like other games have used before but new to consoles as far as I know which till this point always used a P2P setup where one player hosted everyone else, that's not needed anymore for Xbox games. Also titanfall is using the cloud compute parts for AI, be it bots or controlling the titans when they aren't being piloted by a player, that's all done on the cloud/server side.

 

Other developers could use it in other ways in their games, I don't see the big deal? What's wrong with them having access to these resources and trying to take advantage of them?

[XorpiZ]

It's not a tech article in the first place and even if they printed the entire source code, you or me still won't understand a thing.

The dedicated server platform is new on Xbox Live. There is nothing new in PS4 either, heck its GPU is like 2 years old already - you still bought it.

 

Cloud computing is real, no matter how much deep people bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. It is a buzzword and is misused a lot but doesn't mean it has no meaning.

 

I'm a bit surprised by the (apologies for the word) ignorance, shown in this thread. Dedicated servers aren't new, no, but the way it works on the Xbox One is definitely new territory in the console-world. Tapping in to dedicated serves (the cloud) in order to save resourcers on the local console has never this easy, to my knowledge.

 

Screaming "buzzword", "not happening", "but. but.. PC!" and the like doesn't change that.

[Hedon]

Great article. I love how he touched on the most important thing here. GAMES. More and more great games, more and more great exclusives coming down the line. He also said that the console is a games machine first and foremost, with the entertainment as the icing on the cake.

 

The Xbox One just keeps getting better.

 

Funny watching people discount the cloud features now. I guess cloud services is a bad thing.

[XorpiZ]

Great article. I love how he touched on the most important thing here. GAMES. More and more great games, more and more great exclusives coming down the line. He also said that the console is a games machine first and foremost, with the entertainment as the icing on the cake.

 

The Xbox One just keeps getting better.

 

Funny watching people discount the cloud features now. I guess cloud services is a bad thing.

 

Yeah, it's great to hear that MS understands the need for exclusives. Here's hoping there'll be a plethora of great games available at Christmas, so I have an excuse to buy myself an XB1 :p

[Hedon]

Yeah, it's great to hear that MS understands the need for exclusives. Here's hoping there'll be a plethora of great games available at Christmas, so I have an excuse to buy myself an XB1 :p

They have plenty of great games now, so I was happy to buy one at launch. Still working through my backlog of exclusives.

[XorpiZ]

They have plenty of great games now, so I was happy to buy one at launch. Still working through my backlog of exclusives.

 

Only really interested in Forza and Peggle, to be honest. And perhaps Killer Instinct. :-)

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

It's not a tech article in the first place and even if they printed the entire source code, you or me still won't understand a thing. You are just being ridiculous here.

The dedicated server platform is new on Xbox Live. There is nothing new in PS4 either, heck its GPU is like 2 years old already - you still bought it.

 

Cloud computing is real, no matter how much deep people bury their heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. It is a buzzword and is misused a lot but doesn't mean it has no meaning.

 

If you can keep your head out of the cloud (pun intended), that's good, unfortunately the majority of those talking about it (PR mouthpieces especially) don't have such modesty and gamers in general are all over the place with what they think they've been told the cloud is. I have, and I'm sure you do, friends that if you ask them what the cloud is they'd say something along the lines of "something that makes the Xbox One a lot more powerful". Or even "it makes the One more powerful than it's competitors". It's not really as simple as that, considering it's not trademarked tech, something MS has invented, or something competitors cannot do (due to a trademark or lack of knowledge).

 

My thoughts are never tied up in cloud computing isn't real, that's ridiculous, of course it is, we have evidence and have had for ages. You'd be arguing the sun isn't real in the same category as arguing cloud computing isn't. What people with some technical know how about what cloud computing can and can't do are annoyed with is the continual veiling/slightly deceitful nature of arguing benchmarks that are not really what they say they are (in layman terms), and overly zealous marketing (especially in regards to matchmaking and server side AI).

[XorpiZ]

But if you know the cloud is real, why are you even arguing in this thread?

 

Remember you started out by posting that this quote was "painful":

" Performance in this era comes from three areas: hardware, software and the cloud."

 

Following up by claiming it's "internet streaming" and that there's no reason to call it "the cloud".

[trooper11]

If you can keep your head out of the cloud (pun intended), that's good, unfortunately the majority of those talking about it (PR mouthpieces especially) don't have such modesty and gamers in general are all over the place with what they think they've been told the cloud is. I have, and I'm sure you do, friends that if you ask them what the cloud is they'd say something along the lines of "something that makes the Xbox One a lot more powerful". Or even "it makes the One more powerful than it's competitors". It's not really as simple as that, considering it's not trademarked tech, something MS has invented, or something competitors cannot do (due to a trademark or lack of knowledge).

So do you correct them and tell them what MS is really trying to do, or do you just bash them and say how its all bunch of crap?

My thoughts are never tied up in cloud computing isn't real, that's ridiculous, of course it is, we have evidence and have had for ages. You'd be arguing the sun isn't real in the same category as arguing cloud computing isn't. What people with some technical know how about what cloud computing can and can't do are annoyed with is the continual veiling/slightly deceitful nature of arguing benchmarks that are not really what they say they are (in layman terms), and overly zealous marketing (especially in regards to matchmaking and server side AI).

So basically, your annoyed with the people that have taken the announcement and twisted it.

I think it would be best if we all tried to see past the misinformation of the internet and just research what MS itself has said and what they claim is the potential for the server platform they are offering to all developers. Then, if you here someone spout off about it in an exaggerated way, we can correct them and explain what it really is about.