Microsoft Japan Counts on the Power of Xbox One’s Cloud: Says that It Can Actually Render Graphics

Microsoft still has to show its entire hand of cards about the application of the cloud to Xbox One’s games, with Xbox Division Head Phil Spencer promising that a demo is planned. On the other hand, the Japanese branch of the company has been promoting the feature quite actively, and today Consumers & Partners Group Director Nobuyoshi Yokoi mentioned it during the Management Policies Press Conference held in Tokyo.

[randomass171]

I'd like to stop reading articles about it and see it in action if so.

[Am-No-Hero]

Me too man

[ plz don't take this seriously.. we all need actions ]

[Kingthrash360]

Shouldn't they count on the cloud power for xbox2 ...Cuz I don't think the x1 will utilize it fully ( if ever) this gen...kinda like ps3 and remote play.....IMO
The internet isn't stable enough right now..not to mention the cost it would cost many who have a cap on internet use....just saying.

[JBSleek]

@Texag2011 if people don't have the proper internet connections then that sucks for them but we shouldn't stop progress because of that.

We didn't stop HD consoles from coming to the market when not many people had HD TVs so why when it comes to internet.

[Kingthrash360]

Because unlike the TV the Internet charges monthly...and isn't stable or avalible in all areas...and you don't have a choice but to have internet if you want to use the cloud.
This gen is the first with HDMI only consoles..( with the exception of wiiu). Last gen had multiple ways to connect and a HD TV wasn't a must.

[sonarus]

Marketing.

[nicksetzer1]

They can promote it over there because japanese people are n9t overrun by armchair devs who think they know more than the people actually creating the tech. Not to mention it has been done since the mid 90's. The term BIG DATA refers directly to it. It may not directly render graphics but it will free up GPU space. Just because it has yet to be done in this format (and surely not on this scale) does not mean it is impossible.

I realize on this site filled with people who have no actual understanding, but plenty of false information to spread this will not be a well like comment, but if you truly think it is impossible, (without Gb internet, easily done on >10Mb/s) you are wrong.

[Spotie]

@JB: good lord, man. Do you even know the basics of what this would require?

I implore you to do some research on the necessary processes that must happen before something like this could work. And then I beg you to see just how much of the world is able to take advantage of or supply those processes.

There are, perhaps, five or six countries in the world where what Microsoft claims MIGHT be possible right now, and less than half as many that will be there in the next five years.

You say it sucks for the people whose internet can't handle it, but that's the majority of the console market. That would leave any console maker with two choices: fragment the console base- and complicate game development- by having two different versions of the console and games, or lose out on a massive amount of sales by ignoring the majority of potential consumers.

Neither of those will happen, unless that console maker is run by idiots.

Above all, though, learn the subject before you comment again. For your own sake, and ours.

[bouzebbal]

here we go again.... damage control!
i can feel we are gonna hear fun things from MS japan from now on!

[gaffyh]

Of course it CAN, BUT internet speeds are so limiting it makes it almost pointless, because your console->internet->cloud ->internet->console would have to be faster than the speed of the GPU on board, which will never happen unless you downgrade the GPU to be almost useless, or just stream the entire game over video like Onlive and Gaikai.

[AutoCad]

i would also like to stop seeing articles about 1080p ,but hey its not gonna happen.

[randomass171]

Actually I agree with you there. Framerates are more important to me than resolutions and neither is as significant as just making the game look appealing and play well.

[Mystogan]

You wouldn't believe it even if it were right in front of you. They already showed us a demonstration of it and confirmed that Crackdown is going to use it.

This is an early prototype of Crackdown.

http://youtu.be/MJfEUJ57qD8

[iamnsuperman]

Not only is that perfect conditions and the sever was right next to the PC (probably even wired to it) but the demo was dubious with with what they were comparing it too. I find it hard to believe that PC (of which was quite powerful) could not support that demo without frame rate drops (at one point the camera pans away on the server demo to do something completely different).

But the main point is, there is a vast difference with something working in ideal conditions and working in the real world. Which Microsoft had kept tight lipped on (if this demo was really that amazing we would have seen something similar at E3)

[pyramidshead]

I agree^, the need to show it on average consumer level networks and not mere centimetres away from the node on perfectly functioning servers showing scripted environments just for the sake of it.

[randomass171]

While that demonstration is promising, I'm just saying I want to see it in action.

[Go_Go_Se7en_30]

Well pull up your socks, cuz it's about to get real...

Xbox Director of Development Boyd Multerer when asked, "What comes over the next few years?"

"The first thing I admit is "I have no clue!" We designed for that. If there are areas that we can't know, then the most important design feature you can put in is the ability to change. That's the biggest reason why I like the different operating systems: so we can do those updates without hurting the games that have already shipped."

http://www.altera.com/produ...

http://www.theregister.co.u...

http://segmentnext.com/2014...

[AceBlazer13]

Alright, let's say this thing proves itself to be 100% perfect, why in God's name would anyone want this to catch on? What benefit does this have over better hardware at all? How long will it be till they start shipping hollow cases that just stream games to us.

All this seems like to me is a way to give more control to the companies. PC guys, try to understand where I'm coming from. Imagine in the next decade or 2, the quality of games you play no longer rely on the hardware you throwdown money for it'll be about how much your willing to pay steam or whatever. I might be sounding paranoid but this will be the future if this shit catches on man. This goes to Sony to, screw PS Now. Was PS classics for PS4 too much to ask for?

KEEP GAMING ALIVE!

[GameSpawn]

"How long will it be till they start shipping hollow cases that just stream games to us."

PlayStion Now says hi. :) It'll be on the PlaySationTV (VitaTV) once it hits.

[Magicite]

They think Japanese people might actually fall for this.

[TheSaint]

Currently the cloud is all talk and no trousers.

When will we see a true demonstration?

[quenomamen]

Titanfall & Forza already use it, ain't u heard ?

[ALLWRONG]

"I'd like to stop reading articles about it and see it in action if so"

Once they do show it in action most here will still say it's a lie or smoke and mirrors.

[lfc_4eva]

All good things come to those who wait ;-)

[mrpsychoticstalker]

Cloud Tech is the future of Video Games, on a business level plenty of companies worldwide are adapting to it, so its only a matter of time until we see how it in fact renders graphics on video games.

@disagrees

the hate is real, 8 disagrees in less than 10 min. LOL

[Eonjay]

I don't think its hate. I think its doubt. We understand that Microsoft probably can build a graphic rendering infrastructure, but we also understand that requirements to make it a seamless experience. I'm sure you understand why people feel this way.

[lfc_4eva]

I understand that some people may have doubts.

Yet this hasn't stopped billions in believing something they've never seen. I speak of GOD.

Billions of people believe in technology and the screen they are reading at this very moment. But they've never seen the electrons that flow though all the circuits to make this 'magic' happen.

However, MS has at least demonstrated that cloud gaming is at least possible. Yes it was done under perfect conditions but it is just a demonstration. Would Sony release Morpheus right now because people have seen it working? No they are also at the early stages of R&D, but its getting there.

As I put in post higher up, "All good things come to those who wait".

[Christopher]

So, the future is everyone has awesome Internet connections and MS is able to provide hardware that is worth more than an XBO to millions of users at once?

A single demo in the perfect environment with no latency isn't what we're looking for. We want to see is the market base using it on a regular basis with all the talk that they are giving us implemented and without costing us anything extra at all.

I also question how they're going to do it and allow offline gaming for games like Crackdown. Will things just look crappier?

Personally, I still don't believe this technology is going to be of a type that is worthwhile and something that will matter without MS pushing the cost of it onto the users in some way.

[pyramidshead]

Looking forward to not being a part of that future and voting with my wallet :). Especially if it doesn't offer a greater experience than playing physical. Not everyone will just roll over you know ;).

[iamnsuperman]

I am not sure what Microsoft Japan's end goal is here. This notion was laughed off in the west (was ridiculed) and yet they are trying a similar strategy with a society or a market that is stereotypically more tech savvy and less likely to be convinced by (what I see as) western PR tactics (the last time Microsoft Japan talked about the cloud the general reaction from Japanese consumers wasn't exactly positive; it was more ridiculed)

[Flutterby]

They just don't seem to learn and when they do its usually because they notice there wallets aren't as fat as normal , then they change for the "consumer" aka bank balance.

[98xpresent]

I'm not gonna give my 2 cent because I don't know nothing about the cloud , so I'm gonna just wait

[JWiLL552]

I think I speak for everyone when I say I appreciate you letting us know you have nothing to add to the conversation :p

[60FramesPerSecond]

Cloud is the future of gaming, but more likely in the form of PSNow, and not MS cloud. The cloud will help graphics (if it is real), but not enough to justify not putting more power in the console. Why not just have better specs, and no need for the cloud!

[air1]

What I picture of the cloud is different... And I can ver we'll be completely wrong as I'm absolutely no professional on this tech. But hear me out and call me out if you think other wise...

Cloud has been talked more about with rendering meaning doing the calculation for the falling debris from a falling building or ai, stuff like that.. Now if the gou or CPU , what ever it is that would have had to do those calculation, no longer has to do those calcs. Wouldn't the devs now have that much more power left to work more on the details like res and graphics? You know since now the gnu or CPU doesn't have to waste its energy on that.

Edit....

Really! I just lost all my dame bubbles over some damn double posting! Lmfao! Grata love n4g! Or maybe it's just poor internet further proving 60fps about Internet speed! Lol

But seriously my internet speed is more then ready I live in the east coast with cable Internet and no cap just itching to see it happen.. I feel bad for everyone else that can't enjoy it but hey we only live for so long and I'm ready right now...

[60FramesPerSecond]

Yes, however current internet speeds are rather low. In the next few years, it could multiply greatly. Especially with Google Fiber and 5G

[Eonjay]

The major problem is latency. How do you get the calculations back in time to sync with a frame. The bandwidth the Xbox One uses to do what it does now is orders of magnitude faster than the fastest internet connection. Thats the major issue.

[Christopher]

I disagree with this as well. PS Now is an option, but far from the future any time soon, IMHO.

I think people are completely ignorant of bandwidth limitations (both speed and amount caps by month) in various areas of the world. Furthermore, not every area is going to experience the same latency from one place to another. In my area, I tend to get the crap end of it no matter what game I play compared to others to the north and south of me.

***Yes, however current internet speeds are rather low. In the next few years, it could multiply greatly. Especially with Google Fiber and 5G***

1. Google Fiber is being resisted by practically every other ISP out there and is even getting blocked in certain regions.

2. 5G speeds will only come with extremely high costs and very limited service areas (similar to how 4G in many areas isn't real 4G as well). Let's not even talk about while it may have better bandwidth, it will have just as bad if not worse latency. Yay?

[air1]

Don't they have like the best internet service? Or is it china?

[koliosis]

Cool

[scotmacb]

The x1 cloud will work can't wait

[king_ps4]

Source on that?

[scotmacb]

Titanfall , forza , crackdown 3 etc

[Nekroo91]

Tintanfall 792p 60 fps and drops to 30 with the power of the cloud.. how impressive

Fancy word for dedicated servers, old gen already used that.

And crackdown you dont know nothing... for what we know they could be used 300mb google fiber connection

[king_ps4]

A legit source please? If you have no source then you claiming the cloud will work is bs

[luis_spartano]

Meh meh meh cloud meh meh meh

Who still believe in this BS? apparently only Microshit.

[ShadowWolf712]

It amuses me that people seriously think some online server is magically going to pipe in graphics processed a thousand miles away and then compressed and decompressed in real time without any issues whatsoever.

But that's just me.

[Immorals]

If Sony can stream games well on psnow, is a simple matter of cpu calculations that farfetched?

Ot; the cloud would rely on latency, but Japan has far better Internet than most of us.

[ShadowWolf712]

Streaming the entirety of a game's data to be processed on your console is not a processor a thousand miles away rendering your graphics for you in real time. That's just a silly comparison, man.

[bleedsoe9mm]

ShadowWolf712 this will probably sound like a troll but its really not , i'm not really tech savy . But why is it sony says i can play psnow games on my sony tv nothing is being processed locally , its being processed thousands of miles away and if input lag is low enough it works fine . so if ms cloud is processing the city of a open world for example and its restricted to things the don't require super quick calculations . why is it impossible , i admit i'm a laymen but it doesn't seem like a big difference .

[ShadowWolf712]

Well for one, this will only be supported by 2014 models of Bravia 4K Smart TVs and select 1080p models. Odds are that the 2014 models are specially built to accommodate this service.

I'm also very doubtful that the TV service will be remotely viable myself, but time will tell. To act as though they'll somehow act as a second GPU working in perfect sync, however... not gonna buy that.

Hope that helps, cuz I'm all outta bubbles. lol

[Immorals]

I know you're out of bubbles, but it's not working as a second gpu, it's being used to calculate things that'd usually be very resource heavy, ie how the building falls, where particles will break away. Think levolution in battlefield being done at a bigger scale.

[MonstaTruk]

Here we go. More "we can do this!" and "we can do that! Trust us!" *sighs*

[Slick81]

Gotta see it first. like others have said said cloud for rendering graphics is gonna be tough to pull off this gen

[HollywoodLA]

Xbox cloud this, xbox cloud that... who cares!

Get your sales up. Both hardware and software, Microsoft. Enough with the derailed hype train of "xbox cloud."

It aint working, guys.

[DarXyde]

Just because it "can" does not mean "it will". It's just like Ken Kutaragi bothering to mention that the PS3's HDMI was "able to output colors that are not perceivable to the human eye". Yeah, that's nice that it can do these things and all...but what's the point if it's not of any use to everyone with the console (in the case of HDMI colors, it's of use to no one lol).

I will wait and see. Theoretically, if that was the plan for the Cloud, I think Microsoft would be talking about this much sooner. The Cloud will probably prove itself in the future, but for now, we still need to consider that games are unplayable without a connection at this point. Supposedly, the information could be placed in a database and "stream" for a while offline, but that would very likely depend on connection speed. Honestly, Cloud gaming just isn't ideal right now. There are still too many considerations to make. At this point, games like Titanfall do not have the entire XBOX One or XBOX 360 demographic--only the demographic that has XBOX Live and a reasonable connection. In the end, that will be one reason that not every gamer with the console can play every game. Modes, okay that's understandable, but entire games could become unplayable if they don't find a solution.

Make no mistake, I think they're showing ambition here and a desire to improve, but if this takes off the way I'm reading about it, this is a different kind of DRM. One that still prevents you from playing the game without being connected. No security is necessary, but gamers without a connection are alienated.

Just some food for thought. If they find a way around it, great, perhaps Cloud processing in gaming can be successful. If not, well, Microsoft will have to get by on their offering alone this generation or reconsider how much they intend to have rely on the Cloud. Personally, I feel that if they limit its use strictly to online modes in gaming, that's just fine.

[hkgamer]

its definitely tech for the future, but someone has to start from somewhere.

however, simple things could be done with cloud, like grass animation. not sure how much computation power is needed, but if it can significantly lessen the load locally then that is a good thing.

also openworld games seem to be a little empty. look at watch dogs. if there was a cloud mode that can possibly enable 3-4 times more population than that would be cooler, not sure how much it would change the gameplay though. last thing you want is to be stuck in traffic in a video game :P

[hkgamer]

would love to see this cloud thing push single player games. would be really cool if we get actual games using this within the next three years.

[Menkyo]

I just wish they would crap or get off the pot. The first "demo" had no actual information except it was the "power" of the cloud. Look MS quit talking and get on with it already.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

The irony here is the one place xbox struggles the most probably has the actual infrastructure Internet wise to support this cloud compute concept.

[kingPoS]

I know... right. It just isn't feasible right now over here in the big ol US of A. Not with our low averages. http://img.washingtonpost.c... http://www.businessinsider....
As a 3mb dsl user, it sad but true.

Gateway MT6706 2008

[n4rc]

Is 3mb DSL really your only option?

Even the pic you posted shows 7mb as the lowest.. And the other says the average is a 20mb connection... More then enough bandwidth.. Latency is far more important yet nobody seems to mention it lol

[kingPoS]

Yeah some places really are that sparse. Cost also comes into play, I'd have to pay nearly double for 6mb. On the upside my latency pings are in the low 20s. It's just good enough to game & stream video, but a pain to download.

Gateway MT6706 2008

[cyclindk]

I said it from the beginning, if it can work anywhere it is japan. Fiber power.

[assdan]

They have yet to prove that it can work practically.

[ApolloTheBoss]

I am so tired of about "The cloud". If it's so powerful why don't they prove it already.

[n4rc]

I still get a kick out of people on this site..

Yeah.. The giant tech leader with some of the brightest people in the idustry are spending billions of dollars on this... And the armchair experts all think they know more then they do..

Not to mention the complete idiocy of them ignoring nvidia or even sony developing systems with similar requirements on the end user.

The arrogance is absolutely hilarious.. Lol

[quenomamen]

This Cloud thing will actually happen the day they give us a server to keep next to our consoles, other than that and probably never in the US where all the ISP companies have all the lawmakers in their pockets.

[MasterCornholio]

Instead of claiming that they can do it why dont they show us?

I'm waiting for a tech demo that proves that with the cloud the Xbox One will be more powerful than the PS4. I bought the PS4 because it was the most powerful console and the majority of games that I play are multiplats. But if the Xbox One becomes more powerful because of the cloud I'll get one to play superior versions of multiplats on. I need Microsoft to prove it to me first though instead of just talking about it.

[Goku781]

I hope Japan has been paying attention, cause we havent seen proof yet, all talk.

[sovkhan]

Japanese are not going to fall into this bs, trust my words!!!

Well anyone with a proper thinking does not anyway, so way keep this nosense going on? Or prove it to us now, not in an distant , uncertain future.

[CawMasterX]

This cloud talk is really getting old. I rather see it in action. Rather than read about what it should do.