"you'll still be able to play if the internet is cut and "the game is going to have to intelligently handle that.""

If this is true that shouldn't be a problem

1) Those statements remain very vague and although they mention lightning I dont see how to skip several frames without new computation. Except you want laggy effects.

2) It would require a ton of coding. Considering varying speed, varying ping, lags, etc. etc. This developing time would be much more wisely spent in optimization.

Yep.

And exactly how messed up can a game utilizing this feature become if the internet becomes laggy or disconnected?

Personally, I'm of the opinion that computing is getting cheaper and more powerful faster than network is getting cheaper and more ubiquitous. There are some tasks network is essential for. Trading local computing for generic number crunching in the cloud doesn't seem like a good use case to me.

You're a smart guy.

WHY wouldn't they then just let the console ALWAYS "intelligently" handle these calculations!?

I say this whole thing is worthless for the foreseeable future. You can quote me on that. You can bet me. I severely doubt this will influence any of their AAA games at all. Streaming some indy games sure (if they're not all chased away by then).

PR BS.

So the PS4 will be able to stream full PS3 games from the cloud, but the Xbox One won't be able to offload SOME of the work for a next gen game from the cloud??? Really???

I can't believe this is only the beginning of how people are going to be about these consoles ...

This has MMO Goodness written all over it.

For other games though? Man oh man I can easily see game makers fucking this one up.

You don't need game makers for that. The internet will do that for you on its own. Variable ping rates, bandwidth caps, unstable connections, it's all here already (including, basically, ddos attacks when 10'000 XBox Ones attack the lonely server sitting in Smallville with "render more Halo" commands...)

Suddenly MS touts "The cloud" as the saviour for a botched launch presentation. And boy will you pay your part for all those servers... (Sony's "play PS3 games over Gaikai" isn't any better, but they will be less in the line of fire as there will be few people foolish enough to actully try it).

Even if cloud processing allows them to relieve the GPU and/or CPU from some tasks, the console's memory bandwidth will still be a bottleneck. Their claim that the console will be 40 times for powerful than the 360 when using cloud computer (vs 10 times when it's not) seems to be overly exaggerating.

I'm skeptical of all this. Would be neat if it ends up being as game changer as they say.

Sounds promising, I think we need a AAA game using this technology as proof of concept.

The most important thing here is to allow the game to continue even without an internet connection by making a smooth transition between both modes, if possible.

Also, from a developer point of view, this approach of cloud computing + local computing rises a lot cool challenges regarding shared and distributed memory management.

Thing is, when all of the above you just put it hits the fan, you are left with one thing.  How the game maker made the game.  How will they treat this service?  Will it be enforced how it is used?  Im very skeptical.