Microsoft's confusing Xbox One cloud message shifts to dedicated servers

Microsoft's E3 2014 press conference was notable for its focus on games, but one Xbox One feature, touted when the console was revealed last year as one of its unique selling points, was conspicuous by its absence.

There was not one mention of "the cloud" during Microsoft's 90 minute presentation, either from Xbox boss Phil Spencer or the many developers that took to the stage to talk about their games.

[Ballsack]

It's just all buzzwords to make up for the fact ms rushed an interior console to market.. The Xbox one is a good machine, it's just not as powerful as the ps4 an this has given ms a inferiority complex.

We all know dx12 is primarily going to help PCs and we all know despite what ms said in an interview cloud will not quadruple the Xbox ones power

The sooner ms stop with all the buzzwords hyping up the delusional fan boys and just get down to gaming the quicker their reputation will be repaired, they should have learnt by all their reversals that gamers are not idiots an the only people they are fooling are the hardened Xbox fan boys.

[Gazondaily]

"We all know dx12 is primarily going to help PCs and we all know despite what ms said in an interview cloud will not quadruple the Xbox ones power"

Forget quadrupling the power, are you saying DX12 won't help the Xbox One at all? If so, explain why.

Also, with regard to the cloud. Crackdown 3 is touted to use the cloud to carry out destruction. Now we haven't seen it but tell me, IF it works, would that mean its just a buzzword?

Forget hardened Xbox fanboys, a lot of other fanboys are being quick to dismiss it too.

Chances are,

* DX12 will HELP the X1
* MS have something in store with cloud tech. Its not a mythical piece of tech. Just wait and see with Crackdown 3.

Why jump the gun?

[jackanderson1985]

the rumored tech demo from the build developer conference is to be implemented in crackdown and that's effectively the "cloud"

[MysticStrummer]

"are you saying DX12 won't help the Xbox One at all?"

No, he said it's primarily going to help PCs.

-------
Edit - lol @ disagree… Here's the conversation…

Ballsack - "We all know dx12 is primarily going to help PCs"

Septic - "are you saying DX12 won't help the Xbox One at all?"

Me - "No, he said it's primarily going to help PCs."

*disagree pressed*

Ahhh N4G… Always worth a laugh or three.

[Volkama]

The cloud cannot offer anything that can't be achieved with dedicated servers. The benefits beyond that are supplier-side, in cost and planning.

And anyone that thinks that is a bad thing frankly doesn't understand the topic at hand. Dedicated servers can host AI, physics, persistent worlds and basically all the things MS have been aluding to when they talked about "the cloud".

[Gazondaily]

@Mystic

""are you saying DX12 won't help the Xbox One at all?"

No, he said it's primarily going to help PCs. "

Yeah I know what he said. If you actually read my comment properly, I'm posing another question:

"FORGET QUADRUPLING THE POWER, are you saying DX12 won't help the Xbox One at all? If so, explain why. "

I don't see what's so funny here.

[nicksetzer1]

It didn't shift at all .... they showed a physics based demo at BUILD, star tracking at e3 2013, and have a cpu based deno coming soon (as per phil spencer) .... as for not talking about it at E3, phil and sadya said they are done talking about it and will just show it, as fanboys constantly call it a lie.
.
.
This article is a joke

[Volkama]

Aviaflyer, cloud is a term that gets over-used by silly marketing morons, but it does actually have a technical basis that separates the concept from a dedicated server farm.

Microsoft are guilty of using the word in the tech way and the hipster way interchangably, but it is not just the brandname for their dedicated servers.

[georgeenoob]

Crackdown 3 will benefit from this cloud with destructible buildings, as proven from a recent tech demo. How can you be in such a state of denial when games like Sunset Overdrive with 8 player co-op and upcoming games like Crackdown are confirmed to be benefiting from cloud computing?

[805Junior805]

TrueFan1 second account. Or truefan1 is georgenoob second account, hmmm..

[rdgneoz3]

@Septic DX12 is suppose to primarily help PCs. Xbone help will most likely come from easier ports from the PC.

With DX12, they keep saying "console-like API". It's helping PCs get "closer to the metal" which is what they are already doing on consoles.

Here's a nice quote:

"Turn 10 tried to port Forza 5 to DirectX 11, but found massive CPU overhead created a lot of stuttering. The DirectX 12 demo we saw, on the other hand, ran at a smooth framerate primarily because many of its new features—such as bundling resources—were drawn directly from Microsoft’s Xbox One tools."

http://tehparadox.com/forum...

Notice the last part, "drawn directly from Microsoft’s Xbox One tools". Something that xbone already has...

[Evilsnuggle]

septic@

Why jump the Gun ?

Here is why Microsoft is not to be trusted. I'm done with Microsoft they are a bunch of snake oil salesmen .
Why jump the Gun ? How about Microsoft telling its customer that " DA CLOAD" would make xbone three x more powerful . OR how could anyone forget Microsoft claims of TITIANFALL advance "DA CLOAD" A.I that could not be done on any other platform with out the power of " DA CLOAD".. What you really got were dumb as a rock bots that run around in a circle wait to be shoot and more P.R spin
No thank fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me. Microsoft got you boys fooled . Look at TITIANFALL as a example the game is ugly and last gen graphic and brainless A.I Microsoft is sold the xbone fanboys a pipe dream with TITIANFALL .

Why do you thing that Microsoft is putting "DA CLOUD" in TITIANFALL a game that doesn't really need it . Because the Microsoft knows that " DA CLOUD " is really DRM 2.0 that is why. This is just Microsoft reinstating DRM always Online in the form of "DA CLOAD". All of Microsoft games will be powered by " DA CLOAD" or DRM 2.0 you just went back to always online.

[MysticStrummer]

@Septic - "Primarily helping PC" means it will help XB1 to some extent, so your question "are you saying DX12 won't help the Xbox One at all?" still makes no sense.

Nowhere in his comment did Ballsack imply XB1 would get no benefit from DX12, so most of your reply to him came off as overly defensive. He didn't say that so there's no reason for him to answer your question.

@rdgneoz3 - Exactly right.

[Chevalier]

So just a question. If you live in a rural area without highspeed internet do you get a crappy prerendered version since you can't cloud compute? What happens if your internet goes down? You get a crappier version of the game?

[Gazondaily]

@Mystic

I was ASKING him a question. His sweeping statement implied that DX12 wasn't going to help the X1 hence why I posed the question about whether or not he thought DX12 would help the X1 at all.

It was framed as a question. I don't understand why you're struggling to understand that. Read the rest of his comment and you'll know why I posed that question too. Its not rocket science mate. You're just being difficult for the sake of it.

@rdgneoz

Look at this info that is part of a tech presentation on DX12:

"
Dx 12 for XBox:
-1/3 CPU consumption for rendering submission in one game
-100s of thousands of DrawBundle executions are possible per 60fps frame "

http://www.slideshare.net/D...

(its slide 31)
What should I make of this?

Whilst people are quick to spam the agree button with 'ballsack' and his generic dismissive copy and paste MS-skepticism comment, why shouldn't we take the word of industry professionals over sofa experts?

I'm not pretending to understand that tech stuff behind it, but I'd rather listen to industry pros than some random chap on the forum making sweeping statements.

[darthv72]

So Ms gets made fun of for calling dedicated servers the "cloud" and they get made fun of it again for calling them dedicated servers.

Make up your mind people. Cloud is an easier to understand moniker for those who arent tech savvy. We all know what the "cloud" is so lets all stop bitching about how its used.

[DemonChicken]

The cloud, chances are it will help CD, but it is going to be temporary. As with all dedicated servers it's not going to last forever so when you go back to the game when they close those server, expect it to not look so good. Considering the fact that Microsoft are offering these servers for free -

http://gamingindustryiq.com...

It would tend not to last as long depending on how popular and the replay value which will be higher on MP type games or MMO sub type to keep costs down, i.e. you will be shafted if SP.

This is why I don't like this cloud idea from Microsoft. Temp bump and it's like the game is renting for better gfx. You can imagine the implications in the long term.

So Mr G noob I will love to see your take or reaction if they offload everything onto the cloud to make CD run like a PC game but then shut down the servers in the next year =D

[Ju]

DX12 won't really give you anything which you can't do (with direct programming - unfortunately, on the one you can't bypass DX). Believing that Dx12 all of a sudden will make the XO on par with the PS4 is a pipe dream. It makes programming more comfi, but not really faster. Well, or in other word, why fix what ain't broken? Guess that one platform ain't it, right? It will give the one another 1% performance boost (of an already slow machine).

[D-riders]

Delusional fanboy. Like he said if do 12th was going to quad the Xbox 1 power why even have to console and just use the cloud. It's not gonna happen and he's also right about s2 working better with pcs. Fanboy please stop believing 3rd thing you hear. Truthfully if 5th could use the cloud to do what they are saying why even rush your console to the market . They would ha email more respect .

[Ballsack]

@septic... Where did I say dx12 WON'T help the xbox one? Yet you have the nerve to talk about sweeping statements?

How the hell as this dude got them bubbles when he makes no sense

[Gazondaily]

"@septic... Where did I say dx12 WON'T help the xbox one? Yet you have the nerve to talk about sweeping statements? "

OH FFS! I'm asking you a QUESTION!

Want to know why I have more bubbles than you? Its because I dont type BS like this:

"The sooner ms stop with all the buzzwords hyping up the delusional fan boys and just get down to gaming the quicker their reputation will be repaired, they should have learnt by all their reversals that gamers are not idiots an the only people they are fooling are the hardened Xbox fan boys."

In the post where I asked you the question I even clarified my post:

"Chances are,

* DX12 will HELP the X1
* MS have something in store with cloud tech. Its not a mythical piece of tech. Just wait and see with Crackdown 3.

Why jump the gun?"

I'm asking why you're being so dismissive.

Flippin ek...the reading comprehension of users on here is absolutely terrible. It makes having a proper meaningful discussion almost impossible.

[fr0sty]

Don't you love how Microsoft can show a staged demo with servers connected over a local network to a PC showing a building being blown up (at 720p, 30fps, mind you), and suddenly that becomes proof of their claim that an upcoming game will be using the same tech on consoles over the actual internet...

[alexkoepp]

All i know is we are watching a closing gap

Ghosts 720p vs 1080p

and now

watchdogs 792p vs 900p and
wolfenstein 1080p vs 1080p

It's not the widening gap that -$ony fanboys predicted, its clearly closing and now freeing up GPU power from kinect and as cloud power/dedicated servers (whatever you wish to call it, interchangeable) matures along with further dx12 implementations, we are going to see that gap get even smaller. 7 months after launch and X1 still has the best looking game released, and we see improvement across the board steadily.

[fr0sty]

Cloud aided rendering is a pipe dream for now. Latency just isn't there yet for the framerates that we demand for gaming. Physics can work on a limited scale, but bandwidths and latencies fluctuate, and you don't want your gaming physics (which can ruin your game if something goes wrong, depending on the situation) messing up because your net connection had a hiccup. Titanfall claimed cloud AI, but it was nothing special (which is why you don't hear the fanboys citing it as a valid example anymore).

As for cloud aided gaming, it isn't exclusive to MS platforms by any means (nor are dedicated servers, though people seem to forget that often). Example: No Man's Sky. All world generated procedurally by the local consoles, but the results of that generation are stored in the cloud so that any other player in the entire galaxy (and the entire galaxy is stored in the cloud) can then explore that planet if they wanted to. You want to talk about tracking hundreds of thousands of asteroids? Try an entire galaxy...

@alexkoepp, you don't know what to look for in that closing gap. Wipeout HD ran at 1080p60 on PS3. So where's that gap between PS3 and Xbox One? Wipeout HD doesn't look anywhere near as good as an Xbox One game. That's where. Now compare Wolfenstein to Uncharted 4's trailer. Both are running at 1080p60... but the gap is massive.

It isn't the number that counts, but how good the game is able to look while maintaining that number.

[Father__Merrin]

if crackdown 3 is playing offline is destruction less or appear to be not as advanced or will the game save a kinda "destruc-vitar" for use when your offline?

[fr0sty]

You would have to play the game online if it used cloud aided physics, assuming your internet connection was even good enough. Physics changing dramatically can have a big effect on gameplay, so it isn't always going to be as easy as making another mode the console can run the game in by itself if the game relies on heavy physics simulation. Also, you can't download physics calculations before they are even triggered. Each calculation is unique in many cases (unless it is a scripted event), so they need to be done in real time.

Or, Microsoft could just make you have to be always online to play the game, since it uses cloud tech... which is what I think this whole "cloud" crap is doing to begin with.

[Ballsack]

@septic...Tut Tut touchy touchy...

'I was ASKING him a question. His sweeping statement implied that DX12 wasn't going to help the X1 hence why I posed the question about whether or not he thought DX12 would help the X1 at al'

Common sense I said 'primarily' therefore your question is null and void.

I in no way as you state 'implied' dx12 won't aid the xbox one... Its just not going to be this all magical super powerful second coming of the xbox one.. It will help developers tasks a bit more easier not give the xbox one a huge power boost.. Only hardware can do that.

And you talk about reading comprehension . maybe if you didn't come across as condescending people wouldn't have an issue with you.

[DoubleM70]

They don't want it to work because their favorite console is not doing it. Here is the sad part for me Xbots or Ponies tell me they are gamers but pledge allegiance to one console. If Microsoft can pull it off it's a win for gamers. It only means they are pushing gaming forward. If Sony can get Play station now working correctly it's another win for us gamers.... Think About!

[MASTER_RAIDEN]

your entire post is bull from the very first sentence. He didnt say whether or not the cloud will help the xbox one at all. he said it wont quadruple its power. so whatever point you make based off that is invalid.

[CKPan]

@georgeenoob
" How can you be in such a state of denial when games like Sunset Overdrive with 8 player co-op and upcoming games like Crackdown are confirmed to be benefiting from cloud computing?"

So Sunset Overdrive running 120 fps now? that's MS said That Cloud gives 3x power to XBONE.

[Ryan741]

Why jump the gun you say? Because its not Sony. If it was Sony it would be the bestest thing in the whole wide world.

[aragon]

@septic Wow u getting disagrees for asking a question, they made their show about games what's wrong with that?? He mentioned the cloud demo on twitter. What's the big deal. Didn't we ask for only games at e3?

Btw all u people talking about latency with the fan boyish comment history u have. R u questioning ps now latency u do know u will be streaming games that are taxing on caps ?

[wsoutlaw87]

you know almost any machine with internet can use "the cloud". The xb1 doesnt have some super cloud connector or something. All they did was buy a bunch of servers. Games have been paying for servers for ever so ms's big thing was that it would be cheaper for the dev to do, thats all. How much stuff has to use "the cloud" before ms and its fans realize they dont own it, or invent it, and its just server processing. My Iphone 4s uses magical cloud power when I talk to siri. You all know Amazon is the largest cloud service provider and not ms right?

[mmcglasson]

The DX12 equivalent is already in the X1. Of course there will be some updates to the X1 and their DX features but these updates won't be as drastic as they are on the PC.

I'm pretty sure Sony has just as powerful cloud environment due to the purchase of Gakai (spelling). 300,000 servers that MS touted are mostly virtual servers... I am pretty sure it's safe to say MS probably added a few hundred physical servers and the rest being virtual. Sony and MS both have dedicated servers and PS Now is a great example of their dedicated servers.

PS3/PS4 PSNow Beta tester.

[DLConspiracy]

I would think gamers would be excited for the extra power in a game. Not extra graphics. Just more environment destruction and ai. If cloud is a real thing and not a "buzzword" everyone in gaming is going to use it. why wouldn't they?

[wsoutlaw87]

of course cloud is a real thing. How do u think they've been doing matchmaking on all your mp games. The issue is that its impractical and ms is turning it in to a buzzword by way over selling the capabilities and acting as if they have some super secret cloud nonsense. You should really look up what cloud computing is. Its pretty much everywhere by now and theres no question its real. A lot of the services you use online are using cloud computing.

[CYCLEGAMER]

HUH?? What?? Ummmm the "cloud" is and has always been known to just be another word for dedicated servers. No one is being tricked, baboozled, or lied to. Its like calling a "gaming PC" a "gaming rig". Same thing, different wording.

[Gh05t]

The cloud by definition is applications or programs (operations) running on a server other than the clients. Its a client-server model with really the only difference is that it MAY split the process to more than one server to complete the operations.

The second an operation is offloaded to the server rather than the client it is by definition "cloud" computing.

I have a dedicated NAS server but that's not a cloud machine.

I run a sql server which I remote into and perform all my queries on and use that as the power of my cloud.

[Deadpoolio]

That is all da cloud has and will ever be....It's the idiot Xbots who don't know what the hell they're even talking about who made it out as if it were going to be more.

What these morons fail to ever actually understand is that da cloud was NEVER going to do anything for graphics, Azure is designed to work with the CPU not the GPU. Physics at best, AI at best, are about all da cloud is going to do for the Xbox.....Azure isn't even exclusively for the Xbox it's MS business application just like the 300,000 servers morons keep saying are for Xbox when they are FACT for all MS devices and businesses paying for azure services

[wsoutlaw87]

but saying the cloud would 4x the power of the xb1 is a trick or lie.

[Dewitt]

Get tired of hearing this buzzword and PR crap, obviously it takes time to perfect these systems and get the concepts fully fleshed out before they show them to the public. Concepts take some time to work into IPs, they are slowly experimenting and have some huge scale ideas such as what they are doing in Crackdown.

[JBSleek]

There is such so much wrong with this post. I take it that you didn't read the article?

[MerRoids]

The Xbox One was built around DX12. It has been said to take advantage of DX12 100%. So yes, even though the PC will benefit, I don't see the Xbox One not benefiting just as much. That is just how I am understanding it.

[Flutterby]

Well you are understanding it wrong , do you or any of the clueless people know what dx12 brings with it ? It brings console like coding to the metal for pcs , do you see the problem here in thinking the xbone will benefit from it as much as pc ??? It's making pcs more console like when making games and programs it gets rid of some of the fluff most pc software has to work around, consoles such as the xbone already do this.

So the basics is dx12 makes pcs as efficient with code as consoles already are, let that sink in a bit then get back to me.

[MerRoids]

@Flutterby

You assume there is going to be larger improvement on PC over Xbox One, that's fine. I never said that's not possible. I believe it will be more noticeable on PC, sure. .

What I am saying that Xbox was built around it. Ask Phil Spencer, 100% instruction utilization on Xbox One, pretty cut and dry dude.

[wsoutlaw87]

so what exactly do you think an api is going to do for the xbox 1?

[Belasco]

Why does it bother people like you so much? Why are you so interested in this? It's damned near copy-paste comments every time I see cloud and DX12 mentioned, followed by a huge amount of agrees. Is this a troll bot or something? It adds nothing to the conversation except internet sissy fights. Get a life.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

@Ball So not only is cloud being used in Forza 5 Drivetars They're also being used in FH2 and in fact they said it'll be better because of its open world nature. So dedicated servers along with Drivetars that's cloud tech right there.

http://www.polygon.com/e3-2...

Crackdown 3 is said to use cloud the way we wanted to see it. http://www.ign.com/articles...

I'm providing facts, facts that you could of easily looked up before making that comment. You wanna sound cool just like everyone else here and make that sort of comment.

"Its buzzwords" Come on man come up with your own real logic.

"The Xbox one is a good machine, it's just not as powerful as the ps4 an this has given ms a inferiority complex."

The PS4 is more powerful but only marginally stronger from what I've see so far (key word so far). And honestly the power difference isn't substantial enough for an argument.

To me they seem more closer in power rather than the forced further away in power. Other than certain games being less pixels on X1 what other things greatly separates the two systems? That's a legit question btw.

If you wanna talk power then PC is the platform.

EDIT: Instead of disagreeing because you all are simply reading what you don't like reply back prove me wrong, lets discuss it.

[Why o why]

If a 720p vs 1080p gap isn't significant I'm not sure what you consider would be. Yes 900p vs 1080p isnt such a gap but c'mon now. What would you like us to gage the gap by?

Ms tried to do an apple and rebrand something the world already had......'face time' anyone. With this spin on what we've had, some people used it as some new power source that only ms had access to. Just look at how many fans and fanboys have lauded its rhetoric. You cant erase or retcon the proof. The cloud has changed its narrative and so have those who championed it.

Then the final most transparent fallacy of 'if you wanna talk power then pc is the platform......' smh. Whaaa daaaa faaaar happened to that sentiment last gen when 'more grass' was used as fodder let alone the doubling of pixles we've experienced this gen? If we didn't yern for more power/performance we wouldn't need to upgrade at all EVER would we. Its been this way since amiga vs atari, master system vs nes, snes vs Megadrive and so on. M3 owners enjoy power just as much as Ferrari owners even though they're in different categories. Are you implying its only those who can afford or have access to the top end, should care about power and performance?¿ Nonsense. I wish you were there in df and lot articles expressing that said morality because a very lot of fud was flung over lesser differences

Enjoy your platform regardless. Its not the hope in 'the cloud' that annoys me personally but the endless band of gloat like its already proven its application in real world situations when the evidence contradicts. I will add that theres also too much cloud hate by some and that is also annoying especially if sony end up using dedicated servers to achieve any type of increase in any capacity.

My prescription is to wait and see. Temper the expectations for and vitriol against. Any tech progression is good for gamers but lets not get hyped in claiming its a game changer either

[extermin8or]

Crackdown better be doing something damn impressive that couldn't be done without the cloud then. But it's unlikely to be anything other than destruction you trigger that then occurs at a distance from the player because anything else would only work on the lowest latency, fastest internets and any fluctuation in that will mess up the game.

[BallsEye]

It's hardly a buzzword like sony's promised 4D in ps3 games that never happened. I work as a 3d/2d artist and I use plenty of different "clouds" everyday at work. From Adobe cloud that syncs all apps on all my devices and has a ton of cool features to Autodesk cloud rendering (basicly render farms) for computing real life like visuals in seconds.
You want it or not cloud computing exists. Plenty of demos were shown. New Crackdown uses it to calculate physics and destruction, forza uses it for AI (and so will Fable Legends). Even Nvidia showed off their cloud tech demo which you can find on youtube. Have you seen MS building destruction in cloud? Whatever you call it, it's there and you are delusional for doing a witch hunting on MS. 20 years from now I wouldn't even dream of talking to person on another side of the world instantly, like we can now with cellphones or tons of other devices. You can stay behind in the past and do your witchhunt, while I'll be enjoying the future.

[Oner]

BallsEye said ~ "I work as a 3d/2d artist..."

And yet you don't know what 4D gaming is? SMFH.

[Pixel_Enemy]

That's the Ex Bullocks for ya.

[tbone567]

PS4 doesn't have cloud power at all. Thats why Sony is scared.

[TKCMuzzer]

Isn't it the other way round, It's Microsoft who have been touting extra power from the cloud, you only tout extra when your weaker than the opposition in the first place. The whole 'cloud' thing is to try and convince all their fans and future adopters that at some point the Xbox One will be more powerful than it is now. It will have benefits to certain games but it's not going to triple the power of any console, you just can't design games around an infrastructure that won't be available to many for years to come (High speed consistent Internet, uncapped)

The truth is simple, the 'cloud' as it's known is available to anyone to create, even Sony. The fact is though, the PS4 is the more powerful hardware, it's not made up, it's there on the specs sheet and that will never change no matter how many parts MS remove from the Xbox One. These things need to be excepted now so people can get on and enjoy their respected consoles and the games that are to come for them.

Maybe, just maybe we can then start having discussions about games.

[DaGR8JIBRALTAR]

Bubble vote for you man....that's the truth in a nutshell.

[Deathdeliverer]

@Tbone567> Playstation Now runs on magic then?

[showtimefolks]

MS should just focus on making awesome games and stop talking about buzzwords to create hype

[PR0X1]

PS4 and Xbox One are almost the same in hardware. The small difference is that XB1 runs of windows and PS4 from Linux. Most games ran and looked better on the Xbox 360 but if you asked here what machine was more powerful all of you would say PS3. Stop being such fanboys for multi-billion companies. I think both PS4 and XB1 suck when you look at the graphics. But I can enjoy the games even if they don't look like 2000$ PC graphics.

[Sitdown]

What is it about the Xbox one that makes you think it was rushed?

[TheSaint]

You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby, round round round round.

Good ol' MS.

[Azzanation]

Stop being a typical troll. MS already spoke about the cloud and dedicated servers last year. This year was all about the games. If you don't want to believe that the X1 is going to have a major improvement in the coming years and your beloved Console of choice is missing out then that's you being a simple fanboy and a jealous one at that. I am a PC gamer and all my games use DX apart from some. I cant wait for DX12 and Cloud etc.

Regardless of how much it improves the console, its an improvement and something all gamers should be looking forward too.

In your eyes your hoping its only a buzzword and that's a typical Sony fanboy method on holding onto straws believing they made the better console choice. I couldn't care less if the X1 is more powerful or not. The only reason I buy consoles is because of there exclusives, and if you haven't notice last gen each console had there superb looking game like TLOU on PS3, Halo 4 on 360 and Mario Galaxy on Wii.

Hardware is nothing if the developers behind it aren't great.

[TheSaint]

Decrys people by calling them a fanboy, when will people learn that makes you look like a fanboy?

[r1sh12]

are we all sure the writer got it right?

To me -
Dedicated servers = stable multiplayer due to stable ping etc. No advantages to the game host.

Cloud = Raw computing power or storage for anything.
I.e to do very little GPU work, or send textures to the GPU or whatever.

Thats the general principle behind it, from a solutions architect perspective.

[XiSasukeUchiha]

If they were so focused on the cloud, why try to change the subject? because MS f up and they know it.

[Gazondaily]

Actually no. If you read the article, the focus on the term 'the cloud' might have changed but what it's planned to do hasn't:

"The name might have changed, but this is still very much the Azure 'Thunderhead' service, just with a name-change to make it more appealing to the core gamer," Leadbetter said. "While the cloud obviously offers dedicated server functionality, Azure offers the potential for much more and it doesn't look as though Microsoft has changed its plans there."

[Gazondaily]

Gotta love the disagrees I'm getting when I'm basically stating a fact.

Its from the article...even if you don't believe in what dedicated servers (previously called 'the cloud') can do, what am I saying that is wrong?

/Facepalm

[Belasco]

They disagree because of the "side" you are perceived to be on, nothing more. The usual "Lord of the Flies" mentality.

[soandsoz]

"Actually no. If you read the article, the focus on the term 'the cloud' might have changed but what it's planned to do hasn't: "

I agree with you 100% Septic.
I'm of the opinion Microsoft hasn't abandoned it's original vision for the Xbox division and gaming industry as a whole. Rather, they have just revised their approach towards achieving that goal. Toned down their aggressiveness. As I recall reading several months ago, Microsoft has been forced to be far more subtle with it's gaming business agenda

[xboxftw]

MS used term "cloud" for what basically is server farms across the world accessible through internet offloading tasks from local machines to those servers. The term only became more popular since MS used it, otherwise many companies are using the same word cloud back ups, cloud powered security etc to tout the online storage or other services being rendered online.

The sony fans just want to jump in and start negative campaign for anything MS does.

@belasco

100% agree. The way n4g is taken over by rabid sony fans is amazing. Logic is not in their brainwashed minds only what sony tells them to say.

[DEEBO]

I hope it works,Would be nice to have some great features for the x1.

The wait and see thing is really why most people have their doubts about MS remember milo and it's smoke&mirrors.

Sony has lied before too but right now they are on a roll with the ps4,PlayStation now,remote play with the vita and PlayStation tv(same thing) and the VR headset and all of this is working now with demos and beta's for them.

I'm just more impress with the PlayStation camp and where it's taking gaming but this is just my opinion.

question if the cloud can do A.I and destruction can it handle both at the same time? because titanfall had the bot's but no destruction.And did the 360 titanfall use the cloud too and when titanfall 2 comes for the ps4 what type of cloud processing are they going to use?

[aconnellan]

I remember somewhere seeing a Respawn dev saying that Titanfall not having destruction was a design decision early on (they didn't want the Titans to be ridiculously OP). So I'm assuming it could handle both at the same time, but we'll have to wait and see, I could be wrong.

And that's what I've been wondering too. If Titanfall 2 comes to PS4, people won't be happy with MS saying that it was only possible with the technology of the Xbox One

[DEEBO]

But the 360 has titanfall too is it using the cloud? And I know the ps4 hardware is better then the 360.

I bet if I youtube it the game will look and play just about the same on the. X1 and the 360

[Lord Anubis]

It's good they dropped the smokes and mirrors. Dedicated servers is the cloud. Now they are just calling it what everyone else calls it. They also used to call it xbox live even though it was P2P.

[Dudebro90]

You should try reading more than the headline sometime

[Lord Anubis]

you make it sound like i didn't. Thankfully a single sentence in the article can summarize what i said above.

"the cloud, a marketing slogan without substance." eurogirls

[gamerfan0909]

Cloud is another word for Dedicated servers. They're the same thing. How does articles like this get posted?

[JBSleek]

That is very false. They are not one in the same.

Dedicated servers aren't necessarily virtual which you would mean cloud but cloud computing isn't only for dedicated servers.

[gamerfan0909]

Nope.

[JBSleek]

A Cloud Server is a process that runs on what’s called a hypervisor. A hypervisor software lets a single computer appear like it is a dozen or more computers.

A single Cloud Server is just one of those processes. It appears to the user like a server, but it isn’t its own collection of hardware.

A dedicated server is its own collection of hardware. It is a whole computer, complete with all hardware that makes up a computer including a processor, hard drive, RAM and power supply unit.

#Truth

[Elit3Nick]

you win the comment section

[Volkama]

Cloud is not just another word for dedicated servers.

I can't be bothered to explain it for you, but Rackspace's front page should help you with some of the basic concepts:
http://www.rackspace.com/cl...

From a developer perspective it is just very cost effective because there is no redundant capacity, and very easy to plan because you don't need to anticipate and match demand.

From a gamer's perspective, cloud is the same thing as dedicated servers. It is not really our concern how a provider gets those server up for us, the only thing that matters is that they do.

Thunderhead enables developers of all sizes to take advantage of dedicated servers. Well located, good quality dedicated servers.

And no, that isn't limited to "hosting multiplayer games" as some people seem to think.

[memots]

http://a.disquscdn.com/uplo...

[RzaDaRazor]

Does PSN have dedicated servers? or is it P2P?

[Volkama]

They have servers dedicated to matchmaking and such, and proxy servers to help alleviate some of the issues that stem from P2P gaming. Killzone Shadowfall is a prime example, they call it "hybrid dedicated" but that is a bit of a tall tale as one person's PS4 hosts the game.

There is nothing to stop Sony providing dedicated servers for particular games, or more likely taking advantage of another provider's cloud infrastructure (Rackspace, Amazon, even MS would probably be open to letting them use Azure).

EA also provide dedicated servers for some of their own games, but Battlefield 4 is a testament to the difference in quality that you can achieve with a stronger infrastructure.

[JeffGUNZ]

I would really like to see Sony not invest in VR, since that will never take off, and rather invest in their own dedicated server like infrastructure to compete with MS Azure.

[killzone619]

"there is nothing to stop Sony providing dedicated servers for particular games"

yes there is...money. dedicated servers require money to set up. MS have over 300,000 servers set up hence why ALL their online exclusives are running on DS. Sony will be hit or miss.

for example:

Driveclub has DS but killzone SF doesnt :/

[Gamer78]

I don't get why MS needed to bring it back up. They said the conference was about games and it was. Not to mention, we all know the cloud is a thing and it will benefit Xbox as well as PC. I just bought an Xbox One and I am enjoying it. It goes great with the rest of my consoles and PC. So let's just play guys.

Have a great One.

[JeffGUNZ]

Did you read the article?

The article clearly indicates that he was directly asked the question and he did not bring it up. Did you rather he not answer it and just stare back?

[danny818]

well haven't played on dedicated servers but I heard its good. Tbh, I think that as long as they pump out th games, they should be fine

[0P-Tigrex]

PR. Dedicated servers sound more believable. the "cloud" computing in Forza5 and Titanfall are run by servers; servers than anyone could rent out from amazon or simply create their own with the right amount of money (Azure). Microsoft will go into the "server" business attempting to overpower a hardware difference with software servers. HA.

If they just came out and said

"Hey, sorry for the last couple years, we messed up big time. Let us prove to you we can do better and deliver the best games to your living room", i'd buy it.

[aerisbueller]

I don't think the cloud will make up the graphical difference, but it will give it a new type of power that can be used in ways ps4 can't, unless/until Sony makes good on their OpenStack cloud they mentioned once long ago around last year's e3.

I'm still set on getting a PS4 when the time comes, but if Crackdown makes good on that type of destructibility consistently in that game for the life of the XBox One, that's some awesomely impressive stuff, and the first part of the article really downplays the non-dedicated server part of the cloud considering we've finally been shown a gameplay example that couldn't be done without the cloud (assuming the demo is legit, and works in the real world).

I have some confidence on that front though, as I've never heard anything but glowing praise and respect for the Azure platform, and this is from huge companies that have mission critical software running on it, with a lot more at stake than gameplay.

[jmc8888]

Not really. All that we've seen the cloud do, we've seen others already achieve on far less power.

Why does crackdown need the cloud for destructibility when Red Faction: Guerrilla didn't?

Or BF4 doesn't, even on the XB1?

People should realize they are being lied to.

Why is it that you need a new cloud feature just so this gen you can do the same stuff you did last gen?

If it doesn't make sense, it's because MS doesn't want it to. But in reality it does make sense, MS is lying and pretending that this handicap is a feature.

They aren't offering anything new. They are merely expanding the options of what the XB1 specifically can do, because it is such a low power machine trying to compete against platforms literally up to 25x more powerful and growing with every Nvidia/ATI release.

The cloud is a bandaid with potential problems/bugs, that merely potentially allows for the type of games that the XB1 could of provided on it's own had they built the hardware right.

True if they build the hardware right + did this, then it would be a net gain. But right now, it's only a band-aid, because even MS admits, they you can't do these things without the power of the cloud.

Again, I'm just point out...the XB1...possibly true. Other platforms, can do it without it.

[aerisbueller]

I can almost overlook the Red Faction : Guerrilla comparison, but did you seriously just compare BF4's scripted destruction elements to fully physics based destruction?

[soandsoz]

@aerisbueller

When the cloud is ready for reveal in world time situations via the internet, I fail to see how 'canned physics' will be a thing of the past. Are you able to explain how Crackdown 3 utilizing the cloud wouldn't still be utilizing 'canned physics' via the cloud

[AnotherGamer117]

<quote>
I have some confidence on that front though, as I've never heard anything but glowing praise and respect for the Azure platform, and this is from huge companies that have mission critical software running on it, with a lot more at stake than gameplay.
</quote>

I am sure the Azure servers do get glowing praise. One thing you have to realize is that most likely these servers are processing jobs/tasks in the background. There are no "workstations" trying to vizualize a fully destructable building and keep the frame rate at or above 30 fps.

These are tasks meant to create reports, process ordering information, etc... and that 1-2 second response times are quite acceptable (depending on the task being requested). Also, as the Azure servers are being used more and more by business and now by gaming - there will be a higher load on the infrastructure (i.e. network) to get those requests to the servers and back out the network.

Hopefully this has changed, but when I went through networking classes way back in the day - the higher the load on a ethernet network the worse it got (this is due to packed drops and collisions that the network had to keep resending). I am not sure how well they have mitigated this in today's high speed networks but I have watched a nic card totally collapse a 100MB/s network.

In summary, it is anybody's guess as to how well cloud assisted graphics in games will work in the real world. Anybody who says it won't or will is just guessing.

[jmc8888]

As I said before on the day of the show, it was quite clear they changed the words.

Everywhere they would say 'Power of the Cloud', they used...

'Power of dedicated servers' and 'Power of XBLive'

Of course then they ruined it by talking about all the cloud features for Crackdown 3.

I'm sorry MS, I played a game with destructible buildings on your own 360, and it didn't need the power of the cloud to achieve. It was called Red Faction: Guerrilla.

Right now MS is trying to say you can't do these things without the Power of the Cloud.

Sane people know that's complete BS. It may be true that without the cloud the XB1 can't handle modern games trying to do that, but that's an XB1 problem, not an opening of a new frontier by MS.

It's not a reason TO buy an XB1, it's a reason to stay away from an XB1. They are advertising, see this stuff you've seen in last gen game? Well unless we use the cloud we can't do it on our next gen system.

We all know other platforms can do what Crackdown will do, and won't need the cloud to do it. No offloading necessary.

But at least with all the rest they were finally letting the truth come out. The Power of the Cloud was BS. Take note, because alot of people defended obvious lies. Now MS itself has changed it's wording, and left all who defended the lies out high and dry.

At this point people SHOULD be saying, what is MS lying about now? Simple, that Cloud processing is necessary for games to look like that, and beyond that, the XB1 will play all the PC versions and CGI they showed at E3 just like that on the XB1.

The message is clear, they switched, but someone didn't tell the people making the Crackdown segment.

[JeffGUNZ]

I think you're missing the point.

MS is saying this; With the cloud, developers can offload features, such as AI in titanfall and this real time destructible environments with Crackdown, on Azure and free up for room/space for developers to add more content or beef up their specs. All it's doing is giving options and increasing potential features to games.

It's people who hate MS who come on here and spew out BS, like "It's not 3 times stronger with the cloud" when MS never said that. Ever. It's a pretty cool feature, whether or not you believe they can do it without Azure (arm chair developer/engineer over there), it's just cool that their Azure infrastructure can do things like that.

Also, Phil never brought up the cloud during their conference. AFTER the conference he was blatantly asked about it and he replied. Phils demeanor at this stage is to not talk about it and just show it off.

[LordMaim]

They have said that it will be 3 times stronger with the cloud.

http://www.dualshockers.com...

http://www.totalxbox.com/54...

And sometimes, they say it will be 4 times more powerful.

http://www.dualshockers.com...

[JeffGUNZ]

Did you read the articles, they are talking about CPU and storage equivalent of 3 Xbox ones. They never once said it will be like add 3 xbox ones to make a mega xbox. This won't improve graphics or anything.

This is a direct quote from the article you linked:

"We're provisioning for developers for every physical Xbox One we build, we're provisioning the CPU and storage equivalent of three Xbox Ones on the cloud," he said. "We're doing that flat out so that any game developer can assume that there's roughly three times the resources immediately available to their game, so they can build bigger, persistent levels that are more inclusive for players. They can do that out of the gate."

It's piggy backing off of what I said above. It lets developers offload aspects of the game through the cloud to free up more space. It adds more to the game then what has to be put on the disc. I still have not read any articles stating the Xbox one will be 3 times more POWERFUL in graphics and overall performance that some people on this site keep praising. Those articles also don't touch on what I was referring to in my post, that some people on this site are saying it will be 3 times more powerful then PS4. Skewed facts and people only seeing what they want to see when they read articles. No one from Xbox has said the cloud will bring games to 3 times the resolution or FPS. No one from team xbox has said the cloud will lead to 3 times more impressive graphics.

[Infinite_Legion]

The cloud stuff going on in crackdown has more to do with cpu rather than gpu, of which both the ps4 and Xbox one have very similar ones. So to say "we all know other platforms can do this without offloading" is just wrong.
We've yet to see any real gameplay or representation of what this dedicated server offloading can really do besides a pretty old build conference demo. And I doubt it's going to be as simple as red faction guerilla or else they definitely would not need dedicated servers to do so, seeing how they have a much better cpu that last gen. No need to be so drastic when there's very little info on these things yet.

[azure1990]

Isn't Microsoft suppose to have some conference about "cloud" or directX 12?

[MCTJim]

yes its today in Minnosota

[MCTJim]

how the crap can I get a disagree with my comment..its the truth: http://cag.engr.uconn.edu/i...

[Flutterby]

Yes they are doing it on pc again so once again no proof of anything for the xbone, it won't even be real world but closed so also no proof with that either.showing what the cloud can do on high performance pcs running on closed Internet isn't showing anyone anything except that the power of the cloud is still miles away if coming at all.

[arbitor365]

all that PR dribble about cloud computing. like all the skeptics said, all it amounted to was dedicated servers on some games.

[Belasco]

It's "drivel", look it up.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I think this was just Phil Spencer dictating a game focused conference that would avoid certain terms that many in gaming forums were pretty down on hearing: cloud, TV, sports, kinect... all pretty much terms that weren't uttered during the conference.

[DoesUs]

Yep. Just nonsense talk. A year later and not a peep at this years E3. Nice to see the MS diehards still sucking on MS nads.

[Elit3Nick]

It was very clearly stated that E3 would focus purely on games. As for the cloud, MS has already demonstrated a demo of physics based destruction using cloud on early Crackdown code. Another cloud demo will be shown soon along with internet requirements. This is already more than MS had last year, so cloud is far from being smoke and mirrors.

[Flutterby]

The ones they demoed on High performance pcs you mean on closed networks right? The ones that showed nothing real world at all? It was as staged as a play in the theater.

[Belasco]

I can scarcely imagine the epic amounts of flaming Sony fanboy rants that would have ensued had Microsoft brought up the cloud during their E3 conference.

[DoesUs]

It would of been epic...proportionally speaking.

[heisenberguk]

Just like Sony missed out things from their show too!! The worst E3 in a long time imo!!!

[hello12]

Not surprising its from Eurogamer. Sony bias is strong on that site. They even claimed Sony won E3, idiots.

Do they listen. Phil Spencer said E3 will be all about games, nothing else. Why would they bore people with tech talk? I think they learned from that mistake last year!

Funny enough Sony E3 this year was just as bad as Microsoft E3 last year.

Phil Spencer has already commented about the cloud after E3. Post it into Eurogamer, Sony fans.

"Dave and I have know each other since Car Wars, the codename for the original Crackdown. We've stayed in touch since he went through APB and did that... His idea was that Crackdown was just a great game to ingest the cloud work he was doing in Cloudgine and he knew I wanted to do it."1P

Cloud-computing is the technique of using remote computers to calculate complex functions, sparing the local computer that you're using from having to do the heavy lifting.

Spencer explained what the kind of destruction shown in that demo would mean for a Crackdown game:P

"A couple of things happen when, say, a building gets destroyed in a game. You've got the physics calculation of all the pieces that something's going to break into and all of what happens to those pieces as they collide with one another. And you kind of, in the truest sense, want it to be somewhat non-deterministic, meaning that if I shot, like, say, a missile from one angle instead of a slightly different angle, that the destruction looks different based on the pure physics of the impact.

So what we've been working on is this capability of actually computing [in the cloud] the physics calculation of millions and millions of particles that would fall and then just having the local box [the player's console] get the positional data and the render, so, 'Okay I need to render this piece at this particular location. I don't know why.' The local box doesn't know why it's going to be at this location or where it's going to be in the next frame. That's all held in the cloud. You have this going back and forth between the two. 34P

"That's just an example, because it's the example that we showed. Let's run getting a pure physics model in the cloud, because we can use multiple CPUs there and then locally using the power [of the console] to render and make things look good locally.P

Jones' company won't be handling development of this new Crackdown alone. "His Cloudgine company is doing a lot of the technology behind Crackdown," Spencer said. "And then we'll probably get some other production studios involved to help with the full development of the game and our own internal team.

[FITgamer]

Back away from the misterx kool-aid.

[kenshiro100]

...No one is gonna read your wall of nonsense either.

[mhunterjr]

There's no shift. The cloud is dedicated servers... That's always been the case. The only thing different with Microsofts approach is that they are attempting to make it affordable to uses these servers for things other than competitive multiplayer

[Grimhammer00]

We can stop being bitches.....last I heard MS had no copyright claim to the cloud. Or dedicated servers they like to call cloud.

Its true that clouds help do things thst traditionally is handled by your hardware.....but keep in mind that unless your getting sonething that is categorically "greater/better/more advanced" than what has come before......your just getting taken.

Example: if say sunset overdrive said it was 60plyr co-op/competitive mp with its current graphics/frame rate etc......id say the cloud was actually accomplishing something unique. (In terms of capability)

Or forza had 30 cars running on tracks with realtime weather effects, destructible environments (because realism is the benchmark), human crowds with detailed chracters and ai that responded properly to crashes etc.

So until then...

[corvusmd]

The level of miinformation on this page is mind-boggling. Yet ironically, the ones trying to claim that others have been "dupped" seem to be the ones that were most confused. Not to mention that MS and Respawn have both explained in the past that the term "cloud" has several different meanings across the industry. MS's cloud is not the same as Sony's or Amazon, etc. It really just refers to a computer/server that you have offloaded something to. It just so happens that MS uses the term more than anyone else.

Now more to the point, MS didn't say cloud during the 90 min conference, but they did talk about cloud at E3. EVEN IF THEY DIDN't and they just changed the name and realize that calling it "cloud" has confused ignorant gamers and they are just going with "dedicated servers" now...they haven't changed the actual service at all. So any of you claiming "I knew it was just b.s." "don't fall for the buzzwords it's just dedicated servers"...please stop right now, you're only showing ignorance...at least read the article you are posting to. No one will EVER believe an arm-chair developer on n4g over an ACTUAL Dev/expert at Digital Foundry. As far as the "buzzwords" thing...that's a strawman's argument. Fans of X1 (fanboys or otherwise) don't typically go around saying "cloud this and cloud that". In fact the only time it's really ever brought up is if a PS fanboy attacks it...then it might be defended. So the focus on these buzzwords isn't actually an X1 fan thing..it's people on the "other side" trying to make it seem so ridiculous that it can be dismissed. That's why we see things like "da powerz of da cLoUdZ". It's the kind of tactic that someone uses when they can't discredit someone through logic, instead they do everything they can to just make them look ridiculous, even if it means making up arguments that the other person never argued.

I don't care at all what MS calls it, it's still the same service, although technically, cloud servers and Dedicated servers aren't the same thing, and cloud computations are not simply just a service of a dedicated server. If you think that all these are the same, you are so incredibly lost that you should not be posting on this topic (and at least should have read it first). I don't have the time or desire to explain the differences, if you are adults you can look it up yourself, or scroll up to where people have already don the research for you.

MS has been very clear that this tech will take time to develop, they have never hidden this, so be patient it actually looks to be promising. The Build demo was a closed demo, but it yielded 16xs the power on a high-end PC. The service for X1 is only to add up to 3xs the power of an X1...seems pretty do-able after you factor in the typical user bandwidth. True, there are issues that face it just like PS Now, where what if the connection is lost, etc. Well, it won't be perfect, but at least give it a chance before you shoot it down. Yes it will be doing things that can already be done on console, but the fact that they won't have to be, means that it's freeing up the console to do more immediate things. It's just a shame that daily the level of ignorance on this site gets worse and worse, it appears desperate and scared actually. Just enjoy games.

[MCTJim]

People will often put down what they do not understand. I gave up explaining and posting credible sources because of it. Its all right in front of their noses, but because they dont want to see, they wont. Shame really because in the end, it will benefit them too.

[Audiggity]

Ha. Yeah. Sadly the vast majority don't do any research before forming an opinion. It seems that not many people even read beyond the headlines here.

[Audiggity]

You get a bubble vote for that. Anyone who clicks "Disagree" should explain EXACTLY why. What corvusmd just wrote is perfectly accurate.

Anytime anything is mentioned about X1/Cloud/Live/etc... it turns into an almost instantaneous console war for no reason.

The best way to wrap your heads around cloud vs. dedicated would be to associate cloud w/ "scaling". You essentially control an army of virtual servers, they can scale to meet demand and work together on complex 'chunks' of calculations(as the demo showed). This is also why Titanfall launched without a hiccup when hundreds of thousands of people bum-rushed the servers in the first 24 hours. Azure just scaled with the demand.

[AfterThought]

Well my previous post was over 4000 characters but I explained in great detail why I disagree, you are right in most instances but wrong in saying cloud computations can't be done on dedicated servers when its been proven otherwise that it is very possible to do just that.

That is the main problem is that Microsoft claims their cloud is special and different from what anyone is doing which is completely false.

You can't blame fans from others sides for the problems Microsoft created, Microsoft highly touted the cloud as their selling point last E3 and still have yet to prove why their cloud usage is any more special than anyone else or people using dedicated servers for the same.

You are right in that people should listen to experienced individuals and not just rampant N4G'ers. The problem with that though is the only developers I ever hear praising the cloud all happen to work for Microsoft, every other developer outside that has said these claims are far fetched. It isn't just a hate just because they weren't picked up by Microsoft or work for them, they are just being realistic.

Which they are and I will explain why, hopefully shorter this time so it will actually post.

You say dedicated servers can't do cloud computing when people like Shuhei Yoshida have said the complete opposite, someone interviewed Shuhei a while ago, they asked him can the PS4 do cloud computing, you'd be very surprised by his answer in that they have already been off loading compute tasks to their dedicated servers in their games just the same as Microsoft. He even went as far to say with Gaikai they can do all the same things Microsoft is doing.

To say someone like Shuhei doesn't know what he is talking about is insane, I'll listen to him over a few developers who works for Microsoft or digital foundry for that matter, why? The guy works with everything Playstation, he oversees many different development teams and works with them extensively. He has for most his life, it just a few people, it a lot he has worked with and many of those developers have come out to say the same about Microsoft's Azure.

Be my guest to look up the interview if you don't believe me. Why would Shuhei lie about something like even when he explains what they are doing with cloud computing and even what games they have already used it in.

The huge difference is in that Sony didn't make this the selling point of the PS4 and if they had I promise you, people would be giving the PS4 just as much as a hard time as the Xbox One about the cloud.

Microsoft is misleading the public whether you want to accept that but anyone who knows Microsoft's history knows that them going out of their way to mislead people to sell a product is really nothing new to them.

Here is one good example, have you seen the Titanfall commercial with Respawn, where they say Titanfall could not be made without Microsoft's Azure? In what world could that AI not be done without Azure? I am not saying Titanfall is a bad game but the AI in the game is not anymore special than what we have seen before and the game itself is doing far less than what we have seen in the past with larger multiplayer games that have just the same level of AI capabilities on last generation systems that weren't using any servers at all.

Claims like that are misleading and not true, Titanfall could have been made without the cloud, anyone with common sense knows this, you don't need a degree in developing games or programming to understand that but since they used it, they are selling it as much as they can.

[AfterThought]

Now I am not the same people saying the Xbox One will gain nothing from Azure or DX12, I am just being realistic about it all, I am one who researches every side of an argument before I make a statement.

You people can disagree with me all you want but the proof is all out there with or without me making comments about it, it's up to you to actually think for yourself.

Me myself can only blame Microsoft for the problems they created by trying to sell the Xbox One specifically based on cloud computing as if its never been used or done before. To make matters worse they haven't used it for anything more than anyone else has, that aren't using Azure. Even worse than that is even with off loading to the cloud their games are still usually always running at a lower resolution than the the PS4's versions.

So what good is it really doing them selling the cloud this much?

Well sadly that still ended up long even being the shorter version, sorry.

[quenomamen]

Yes just put out the games and stop spouting off about how you're gonna triple the X1 power MS.

[T2]

sure don't listen to the armchair devs at n4g, but we should all read this long wall of pr from corvusmud .... lol

[beans]

What gets me is why does this matter to people. MS is on a very thin wire with there credibility in the console market. I really doubt they would risk everything just to play buzz words. We should give them a chance to prove themselves or just stfu until we see if any of this was true or all just lies.

[MrGunny94]

Hey guys, I've been using this type of Cloud tech for a while.

Here's what I can tell you about..

You can stream graphics data for example : Physics, Destruction, values (all the numbers of damage and skills server side).

What only loads on your Hardware it's actually the models.. You can also load the rest and so on, but the cloud allows u to stream the animations as well.

This is all good and great but you need a good connection 10mpbs or more.

It's a great tech and I'm seeing the future of gaming becoming cloud based like Netflix but with gaming, streamed data.

[soandsoz]

"It's a great tech and I'm seeing the future of gaming becoming cloud based like Netflix but with gaming, streamed data. "

To me, the realization of 'cloud' tech in gaming isn't so much in question. That time will positively arrive.

The bigger lurking question is will the masses embrace it. Judging by the original XboxOne reveal, I think there is a strong case to be made against mass market adoption. I say that because I don't think it was strictly 'messaging' and uninformed consumers that caused all the backlash. Gamers seem to want to continue owning their games and hardware in terms they are traditionally accustomed to. I don't think that many gamers will relinquish that stance/opinion. Ultimately, I see that being the clouds crux. Not because the 'cloud' won't work as designed, but rather because it actually WILL eventually work as designed

[MrGunny94]

I think people hate change.. I've been using Steam for years and I'm okay with going full digital.. Few are the games I Buy in boxes and it's just because of special editions.

But anyway the Cloud is not a lie, but just takes some great development to make it perfect.. But yo must be always connected... Now you're understanding why Mattrick wanted ALWAYS ON..

Oh and.. For those wondering yes the Cloud wasn't ready just like the Xbox One wasn't ready yet, it was due to PS4 release Xbox One got rushed..

[Flames76]

Nothing confusing about it if you have a brain.I can see why some sony fanboys are confused like the one writing this article

[T2]

you are right there is nothing confusing about dedicated servers. what is confusing is why MS would spend all that time and effort trying to confuse people when they could have just spent 50 bucks and put better hardware in the xbox.

[Ghost_Nappa]

Theyve always said azure wil bring dedicated servers

[quenomamen]

Wow, Destructable buildings, something DICE had since Bad Co 1 without the all powerful Cloud, Welcome to 2008 MS.

[headblackman]

that's odd how every plastation fan has an opinion on something that they know nothing about. im sure we said that wifi was some kind of mythical creature, but low and behold, a wireless internet connection reaches my devices all of the time. all of the debunking that theses insecure people claim on anything xbox is all based on their fears of something being better than their beloved playstation. they wanna feel that they made the right decision and so they tell others that they've made a crap decision by posting lame debunks with no knowledge of the tech at all. they spread nonsense base on the knowledge of old tech which azure and dx12 is far from. cut that nonsense out and just play games. if you feel that the ps4 is a good system then happy birthday to you (PLAY IT!) but don't try to spew lies and half truths in attempts to sway the less intelligent over to your console of choice all because you want more friends to play with on a system with lame servers that they don't even own (lies and half truths to trick people into supporting a company that you know is dying). if you wanna help sony, stop milking them for free games. if you wanna help sony, start buying games. if you wanna help sony, stop buying used games or reselling your games to places like gamestop. if you wanna help sony, stop letting them lie to you and feed you crap and hold their feet to the fire like you try to do to microsoft.

[Keregan]

This article is wrong, they mention that the crackdown 3 trailer was based on the cloud demo they showed a couple of months ago the one we could saw a building being destroyed in thousands of particules at a rock solid 32 fps while the same thing on a normal computer was stuck at 2fps. Xbox one is futur tech while the ps4 is only a modern gpu soon to be outdated :P

[welly300]

Everything Microsoft can do sony can do better im sure sony has looked into the tech and will follow just like Microsoft copied sony on plus.

[N4GJD]

"the cloud, a marketing slogan without substance."

That is pretty much all it has been and will continue to be. Even for the few scenarios where latency and bandwidth are not a physical limitation, it will require you to be connected online, and the extra cost of the cloud will be passed on to you!

And don't forget how stupid the cloud powered Titanfall grunt AI are; likely due to the cloud.

[Ketchum]

Has anyone ever wondered that if the cloud can make an xbox one 3 - 4 times more powerful and if that building falling apart is any indictation that it can. Does that mean it can basically bring an xbox 360 up to at least an xbox one? Or slightly more powerful?

What's the point in upgrading? Sounds like as long as you have an internet connection then the cloud will just do everything else.

[sAVAge_bEaST]

I want an apology from every one, that argued/tried and justify, "Poar of teh Clowd" . When I said it was nothing more than dedicated servers, doing some server side compute.

http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

[Gamer666]

So what is Forza 5 Drivatars?

[deadman1987]

Why not have people who have home pc's using windows install some software for the xbox one to use some of the windows pc resources over local area network rather than the internet. this would eliminate the need for fast internet everywhere for that aspect of the console. there would be nothing stopping the ps4 doing the same thing which would add a power boost to both consoles.

[LostFlock]

Have they demonstrated the cloud to the public or just behind closed doors?

[lemoncake]

Microsoft didn't mention the cloud but we saw it being used, which is much better way. They wanted E3 to be about games not the tech that makes those games possible, which the majority of consumers wouldn't understand anyways. So sticking to terms consumers are familiar with is good.

[Artemidorus]

This isn't really news, you need servers to provide a cloud based service.

Cloud has already proven to me it works, just play a regular match on Forza 5 using online AI, you can tell the difference right away.

[gazgriff2k12]

when xbone with DX12 and cloud brings uncharted 4 level graphics ill will believe the hype until then enjoy your 720p 30fps games

[edsmack]

It will be interesting to see how the cloud works for Xbox one !!!