brendude13 said:
People haven't forgotten that Sony got into cloud gaming years ago, how is that even relevant? Who said cloud won't work for the Xbox One? I don't think you actually understand why people are mocking the cloud, it's not because it's useless (which it isn't at all) or that it's inferior to Gaikai (which it also isn't), it's because Microsoft were overhyping it, making false promises about its capabilities and even implying that it will negate the difference in power between the Xbox One and PS4. Do you have any proof that Gaikai will have a significantly larger latency than Azure? I'd like you to find one example of somebody that has said that cloud will never work for Xbox One and that Gaikai will be great, let alone another 10 examples needed to actually justify you kicking up a fuss about it. Anyway. That was a really good video, he explained how he was using the cloud clearly and honestly. |
MS never made statments that the cloud would negate any difference between the X1 and PS4 because they never made any comparisions between the 2 consoles. Instead MS stated the cloud is like having 4 X1 units in one. This statement can be considered BS because MS cannot at this time prove it but in the years to come, this statement could very well come true.
As for latency its really a numbers game. Latency is the result of hops between the client machine and the server performing a specific task. The more servers you have the less hops a client machine will have to go through to be served by a specific server. So in order for Gaikai to be successfull, Sony will need to invest and a lot of servers so that there is a server to serve data locally to clients. This is an area that MS has an advantage because the scope of Gaikai cannot be compared to Azure and the amount of servers MS can bring to the table.
To be honest, the reason people thought it was a bunch of hype is for lack of understanding and knowledge. People are quick to mock something they cannot understand, and it continue to be the case today as people continue to compare Gaikai to Azure as if the 2 platforms are even remotely the same in structure, functionality and scope. Another issue is that people understanding of what a true cloud services is very limited. People are quick to say Hey, Sony has Gaikai so they must be on the same level as a service like Azure. You tell these people that Gaikai when they were bought is a 80 man team that was purchase for 500 million dollar while Azure is a platform MS has invested in the last 5 years 14 billion dollars. This year alone MS spent 1 billion dollars on their Virgina datacenter and another 700 million on their Iowa datacenter.
When I tell people this part, the usually dismiss it saying so what. MS spent all this money but it means nothing. Most of these people have no concept of the scope of Azure compared to Gaikai. Next people do not understand that Azure is a complete cloud service in that it performs everything. Its a SaaS, IaaS and Paas. Currently Gaikai is just a SaaS and its very limited in scope as it can only perform one functionality. There is a lot of people that believe that Sony can just changed Gaikai to perform cloud computing like MS is touting. This is something Sony cannot do. They would first need to build the software platform. They would need something like Orleans. Openstack can fill this role but its not specific enough thus a lot of development will be required to make this happen. Also Sony would need the infrastucture to turn the Gaikai servers into a PaaS which is no small task and would cost plenty of cash. Even so, dividing what Gaikai does and making it do other services might not be the best fit as this will then reduce the amount of resources Gaikai can put to bear on it's main function.
When all it said and do, money still comes up as an issue because all of this stuff cost. MS has the advantage because Azure brings in profit and dose not show up as a cost to their business. If Sony wanted to replicated the dedicated server part, then that would show up as a cost. dedicated servers do not produce profit for a business and trying to run 100,00 or more of them might not be something any company would invest in unless they can make money from it. Purchasing from companies like Rackspace or Amazon incurs more cost as those companies will be seeking a profit.
The reason MS can do this is they already paid the money, have the infrastructure, platform in Orleans and the servers. Those services do not run at 100% utilization so they have plenty of room to do things that are a cost like dedicated servers or even price it at cost or below.
