Tech Talk Part 1: PS4 GPU Compute Explained, and some other stuff, AC;Unity CPU load XB1 ESRAM 204Gb/s..etc

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Norris2k said:

KreshnikHalili said:

I thought microsoft is leading in cloud-computing that´s where my impression was coming from ;). And I highly believe that the azure servers microsoft owns are by a big margin more capable than those of sony. using the ps4 as a cloud-service leads to some issues. first of all, the ps4 of your friend has to be on(line). second, he can´t play on his ps4 at the same time. third, it can´t be used to expand the capabilities of the restricted hardware itself.

About your question - I can´t give you a real answer to that. It depends on how much data you have to transfer for the physics and how much for the image-output of the whole game. While processing the whole game on the cloud can lead to input-lag, outsourcing only the physics / part of the physics is negligible input-lag-wise.

About cloud, I'd like to reply, as I'm myself involved in cloud development (not in game). MS has a very good offer in term of cloud, but:
- Azure is not MS xbox one exlusive. Nothing can prevent a game on the PS4, or even a Sony's game on the PS4 to use (efficiently) Azure. The only difference could marginally be cost, with MS charging less for a xbox one exlusive usage.
- Azure is one of the many excellent services, just as are IBM bluemix, Google cloud, Amazon cloud, etc. And these services are growing fast, it's very available, getting cheaper, better, faster. There is about nothing that MS can do that any other service can't do. There a few things that make a good cloud service : scalability, that requires scale (the bigger you are the better are scalability and cost), and the variety of service and products (which are not so relevant for calculation, and again not specific to Azure), reliability, availability... and MS is not the only one that can offer a good level.
- if we focus only on Constructor services, Sony's service could very quickly improve dramatically, because, cloud for external calculation is only about servers and bandwith : anybody can do that, or make a contract with someone that can.

Well said.

Piggy Backing off what you said. The bigger Sony's userbase gets the easier it will be for them to do business with cloud companies. If PS4 games start gaining 3, 4, or 5 times larger userbases than the competition they will move from trying to sell their vision, to cloud services battling to earn there buisness.

That is why I am really hoping Sony's Xperia line starts to take off, and they can start making better deals with mobile providers. If they can gain enough market share, carriers will be battling over who has the first network to run PS4 streaming, and PS Now over their networks. IMO, that is the ultimate future of portable gaming, and gaming in general. One game, developed for one platform, across every device you own.

At that point the bandwidth and proccessing power available in the cloud would easily be capable of delivering the kind of promises Microsoft has made.