I don't know why we "gamers" are so skeptical and resistant about new concepts, even though we are in general techie enthusiasts. I completely understand the current limitations of cloud computing, and I'm also one of the guys who believe it's still not feasible today, but people laugh at anything MS say in this regard. Someone has to do the first step if we need to  get somewhere, like in the early days of 3D games full of glitches or even now with motion controls. I don't like kinect and I can't think of any games available today which could change my mind, but I admire the concept and it's inheritent potential.

And no, I don't think that what you said is "fanboyism", since it was full of reasonable arguments. Unfortunatelly, this is not the case for most of the other comments in this site.

Yep, the type of answer I expected.  Its a common answer when someone does not know the answer.  Its a common way people debate on a subject and do not want to say things that might show they do not know what they are talking about.  Since you only hilighed one part of a paragraph where I give examples it appears you are either not willing or cannot debate a point but instead you want to go the high ground with nothing to stand on.  Thanks for playing and leave such topics along if you are not sure on your position.

I don't think MS is talking total crap when they say they can drastically increase the power of the console using the cloud.

But as of right now, its more PR speak than practical IMO.

I think if the world had a significantly better internet infrastructure then Cloud computing would be beneficial to the level MS are currently claiming. But that infrastructure just isn't there. Certainly not in 3rd world countries....and I would argue even in most first world countries.

I see latency, bandwidth and generally unreliable internet connections as the biggest issues here. ESPECIALLY LATENCY.

Not to mention, companies have not proven they can use cloud computing for gaming consistently yet. Most companies just mess it up.

Also, people like to talk about MS's cloud computing capabilities and its Azure platform...but this is mostly used for Saas and IaaS type applications. None of which are really bandwidth intensive or latency dependent. These things become major issues with games.

Exactly, good post. I am looking forward to anything MS will show us what they really wanna do with the cloud but by now it is totally unclear what they are trying to do technically. I said in several posts that this is especially also a problem with Gaikai but I think most people don't understand what we are talking about because they are "only" gamers which is, to me, perfectly fine but as people who know what they are talking about we have reasonable doubts on the whole topic.

Furthermore Sony and MS will get hate if their solutions don't work but it is not them to blame but the customer's internet connection.

I don't think there are any games that are currently available that blend local and cloud processing, which is what MS are claiming here. This is why people are claiming BS.

Gaikai, Onlive stream the game and relay your control input. Nothing is being done locally.

With MMO's and always online games, game assets are loaded locally but simply hosted on a server. This is completely different than using cloud computing for physics and realtime computations and rendering etc.

I don't think what MS is talking about is similar to Gaikai though?

Gaikai is plane old streaming. If you gave good bandwidth, a fast internet connection and decent latency you can do gaikai.

But when half your game needs the cloud to function....then thats a different case i think.

no but the technical concerns are mostly the same: you don't know of the connection the customers have. gaikai will also greatly depend on latency. but it is nothing sony can calculate with. ms and sony can only provide a "service", build up data-centers, make contracts with peering-partners but can in no way influence the experience for customers.

I agree. But my point here was that Gaikai is a stand alone service. Its not an integrated part of the game.

And in that regards it's completely different from what MS was talking about "with cloud Xbox One will have 40x more power than 360...etc."

Edit: Its both Cloud computing but one is pretty much straight forward streaming (very normal, we all know about this) - Gaikai. And the other is offloading CPU and GPU tasks to the Cloud and then have the results be returned and integrated with local processing - MS's cloud solution.

Im not saying MS wont have a similar service to Gaikai but I'm specifically addresing the claim that cloud will ultimately increase processing performance.

I will say the problem with Diablo and Sim City is the same thing that has been happening with most game developers when they attempt to institute the net within their infrastructure.  They only provision for a base load and not over provision just in case they find themselves getting more users then expected.  These type of growing pains happen all the time with MMOs when they first come to market.  Its definitely an issue that MS must get right on the first run or get hit with a ton of negative feedback like the Sim City fiasco.

Once the developers get the servers up to meet demand, then those issues go away.  As for MS, it appears that they might be ready at start with their servers because it appears they are providing more than is needed at the start so the experience might not be the same.

As for Fable pipe dream, I do not see any RPG game even attempting that kind of persistent dynamic world today. From Skyrim to Witcher or even MMO type RPGs like Guild Wars 1/2. I do not believe the problem is as simple as using a HDD to store the world since that would not have been something Stopping Peter and his dream or any particular RPG today.  How many CPU cycles will you take away from the game to process and maintain the game state as things like planting a tree or destroying a village starts to impact the global world around you.  The best case would be MMOs in such a scenario and this could be something we might see with Lionhead new game.

Personally I would like to see the game world change with the actios I perform.  If I kill a village.  If I come back to that village later, I would like to see it overrun by monsters, or nature has taken over and now the bodies are decompose and the homes are taken over by overgrowth.  I would think the world would be much more alive if your actions actually had some impact to the point where unpredictable things could occur.

I do agree "Let's continue this discussion after E3 with hopefully some actual examples."

I think your mixing up scenarios here.

MMO's (or any online game for that matter) dont really use cloud computing to improve the game itself....as far as im aware that is.