Xbox Cloud Power: Unlimited CPU - Future of Games Claim

[vivster]

Puppyroach said:

vivster said:

Why would MS regret it? They're the ones using it as a marketing tool and considering your level of hype, they succeeded thoroughly.

You really need to read up on this. There is really not as much to it as you might think. It's just offloading tasks to somewhere else and with that extending its power. The concept is limited in itself and by other technologies such as the internet. It's what's used on the internet all the time. The concept isn't new, only its application to games.

An example for evolving technology: Mail delivery.

It started with just delivering small letters via foot or horse. It evolved into a world wide net of carriers that are able to deliver huge packages in the shortest amount of time. That is the capacity of the technology that evelved quite greatly. However it is still limited by design. A delivery won't make the package prettier or more valuable and a delivery also can't compete if what you want to have delivered is already produced in your own house. Never. No matter how much it evolves.

And with your example you are perfectly describing what I see in cloud computing for games: the capacity of what developers can do grows and the power of the console expanding. My focus is developers making bigger world, and having more freedom to do things in games, not necessarily making games prettier. I wouldn´t rule out that they will find ways to make games look better aswell, but that´s not my primary interest in it.

You need to have a more open mind and see possibilities instead of restrictions. It all becomes funnier then :).

Cloud computing does not make worlds bigger. That's not even on the list of its abilities. That's storage, not cpu. We already have huge worlds in video games and they're going to get bigger without any need of an internet conenction. At some point worlds will become so big that it becomes unfeasible to design everything by hand so it's going the route of procedually generated worlds, which take no space that would need to be offloaded.

You only look at what the technology can do but never in the video game context. Just because something is possible or nice to look at does not make it useful for gaming. There is simply no need in videogames for accurate massive particle calculations. It's easier to just simulate it with other techniques used by graphic designers. Looks the same, does not cost tons of CPU cycles. I cannot think of a single instance where developers are currently CPU limited that affects the gameplay. MS is only doing it because it looks nice, to advertise their Azure platform and because the X1 has a potato where the CPU should be.

Think of the Cell processor. So many possibilities, so much power for the time. What did it do for developers? It handicapped them and lead to inferior products and frustrated developers. Why? Because the effort involved for the small gain did not make it feasible.

We could build a space rocket right now that is capable of transporting a thousand people to Mars and back. The technology is there. Should we do it? Of course not because it requires too much money and work that could be used to fix actual problems on earth.

It's the same with cloud computing for gaming. Should we go the extra mile for minimal gain or should we concentrate on unifying CPU and GPU to make both work more efficiently, helping us in the long run? Yes, the latter one.