How much bandwidth do you get?  The amount of data you're passing to the cloud servers will be significantly less than what you'd be passing for an online multi-player game.  Most of what you'd be passing to it would be positional data, so it knows where you are and can pre-render worlds.  But what it sends back down wouldn't be graphical data, but calculations, which the game would then use to quickly provide graphical info on your end as it is needed.  Or in the case of AI, it'll process AI data and as you need it, send it down.  So, lets say you meet a character in the beginning of the game, it'll process that character in the cloud and if you meet that character again later on in the game, give you a character story based on everything that the cloud server calculated for that character.  So, a developer could give you a unique AI character story (sort of like a choose your own adventure for the AI character) from that of any other user or play-through.  Or in the case of an RPG, you could have an instance where you have a mission of immediacy and a few that you can put off.  Well if you go on those easier quests and avoid the immediate need, it could have reprecussions down the road.  Not only with that one world, but across other worlds in real-time.

The data won't impact what is on screen, though the lack of it could severely limit the world the game is in.

In terms of #5, nope it doesn't actually have much of an effect.  The majority of code for a multi-platform game would be the same.  The difference is, when calculating the world environment, you may have a more extensive world or your AI characters could be more dynamic.  The developer may choose to facilitate that added world environment through a DLC for another platform, instead of being seemless for the Xbox One.

Some clarifications... Cause some people really need it...

1. Cloud for the XB1 is about latency, not bandwidth. The amount of data sent to and from the cloud is minimal (We're talking extremely small packets containing a script for the cloud to execute.) Your 100meg connections is just as good as a 256k DSL here provided they both have adequate latency(preferably <100ms).

2. If the cloud is down your game doesn't "magically" stop working. Cloud processing will be done at the loading screen. If the cloud isn't available, the game will take longer to load due to taking in processing locally. Some features might be disable such as advanced AI and multiplayer might switch to p2p but the game will still work.

"2. Processing power in the cloud for every Xbox One is not free. The cost still has to be in the Xbox One pricetag or more likely an increased price for Live Gold. You're not getting something for nothing."

That's not a question...his stating that as some sort of fact....

This is not derail, it is exactly the same problem.

Especially, all those points are of course not new... He just summed up what was already discussed (with answers) in other threads.

uh isn't this thread derailment?

what does the op have to do with sony?

especially since they aren't the ones pushing cloud computing

Interesting questions, but I think many are already dismissed.

1) As noted by another poster, MS is greatly increasing the backbone to handle this immenent surge in demand. I believe the capacity their adding will reduce the risk to the point it should never become an issue. MS seems to be plannning for this potential risk already.

2) Yes, to expand the system to solve #1 there clearly is a growing cost on their end and there is a concern for cost increase on the user end. However, that may not be in the form of XBL price increases, but part of what apears to be the cost of games increasing and especially the new DRM policy that will surely gain new revenue stream for MS.

3) This is really a non-issue. The servers for this will never be turned off. This isn't the same scenario as online multiplayer support. This more of a generic set of SDKs to handle similar processing for all games continuously going forward. However, even if it did turn off, MS already said what would happen and all it really comes down to is longer loading times and potentially a hit on frame rate.

4) Answered in #3.

5) Partially answered in #3. It won't affect porting at all. MS is handling where the calls to its SDK are going, not the developer. (IMO) So, the devs / engines are the same, but one of the XBone's OS layers is making the decision to handle a particular process in-house or sent to server.

If I were a develper, I'd be seriously pissed if that is the case. I would not want to have unknown latencies introduced to my code at any one point.

And there are more problems laying ahead tham what you might think. Those 300'000 servers, are they physical servers or virtual servers? MS stated that every game will have its own dedicated servers - you better hope that the servers for your game is located near you and not in Nirvanistan, and that there are enough servers allocated to your game of "Pong3D", while 299'000 are Halo67 and GoW83 servers....

Crazy hunh!  Like the little engine that criticizes the one that could.

Ok, Answers:

1.  They will add more servers.  When Xbox Live has a problem, they fix it really quickly.  I don't think I've seen it down, or even partially down, for more than a few hours.  Even Netflix went down on Christmas Eve for a while.  Things happen, but Microsoft so far have been fixing really quickly.

2. They might raise it, but I doubt they will do it for a few years.  Plus with all the sales, it's usually easy to find $20 under suggested retail price.

3.  Perhaps, but I doubt they will be taken down that quickly.  The X360 with Xlive is going to be supported for a good number of more years.  I would think you would have outgrown the game, for the most part, by the time that happens – like 2022+.

4.  You can't play multiplayer online now with internet outages.  So it's not a new or big problem.  Does it work for you now?

5. Seriously?  Do realize that Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and Microsoft already handle a vast number of computers?

That's a lot of worry to spend on hypothetical’s.  Worry is important, don't waste it on trivial things.

Look at how things are now, they will likely be the same if not better - at technology and infrastructure improves.

Thanks for all the serious answers, they're good.

Yes, Sony has the same problems if they do the same, of course.

If it's already covered by Live then they must be decreasing margin on it. Since it's an additional expense regardless.

The servers will go off some day. Not in this gen, but SOME DAY for sure. MS will not want to maintain a service below a certain number of paying users, whenever that might be. I'm thinking more of the, come back in 20 years and want to play that old classic 'Halo 5'.

If this ground has been 100% covered in other threads I apologise.

Do you actually believe that?

I don't believe in it one bit. It's just typical PR BS and blatant lies. Just look at their other claim, "we wanted to focus on one platform because we're a small studio". I don't buy that when even indie developers release on multiple platforms and when next gen hardware is supposedly the easiest to develop for with both PS4 and Xbone being very similar.

The game is being ported to X360. Will it have different features because the X360 can't connect to the cloud? No it won't. In the end you will see it won't. Well yes, perhaps one minor feature is going to be missing on X360 so that they can claim the Xbone version took advantage of the cloud and couldn't be made on anything else than the Xbone.

A much more honest PR would have been to say that "MS made us an offer we just couldn't refuse".