Cloud computing doesn't mean always online games, at all. You can play a cloud-enabled game offline. It just means that you can't experience the benefits of it when you're offline.

So really, what people are saying it "fuck games making progress if I personally can't experience it yet, even if more than enough people can to make it mainstream."

So which I say, too bad. Oh, so sad.

BRB, going to play WOW without an internet connection.

WoW isn't online because of cloud processing. It's online because its a massively online multiplayer game. It's in the genre. If people are now willing to get upset because they need to have an internet connection to play an online game, then just take me to heaven now.

You really think developers are going to program a non-cloud and cloud-enabled version? Would you name these cloud enabled games where we can play offline? All of them that I play require an internet connection.

Let's be realistic, AAA budgets are outradious as it is.  If this is an Xbox only solution, no third party is going to increase their budget on an Xbox only cloud-enabled version which will sell the least.

If the majority of a game is being streamed from the cloud then it's "always online". I'm not saying that's the case now but it's the natural evolution of this tech. It wouldn't really matter with a game like titanfall that's only multiplayer shooter but with games that are single player it's a huge negative to gamers.  It's not progress if you take two steps back for every step forward.

Depends on what you call progress. For now it's mostly presented having the same effect as adding a PhysX chip did almost a decade ago. Ehancements rather than progress.

It's making the job of developing games harder instead of easier. Now you need 2 versions of the game engine on the console and an extra engine on the server that runs parallel with every game in progress. Plus a whole load of contingencies when data doesn't arrive on time. That's not progress.

That doesn't mean the research won't lead to great things. The modular Azure setup MS is working on can solve all the slowdown that Eve experiences in massive battles. Time dilation won't be neccesarry anymore (yet a complete recoding of the engine will be, so I wouldn't count on it) Online games running on standard, interchangeable servers is great news. No more keeping legacy servers running, simply migrate the virtual servers to newer faster hardware. Old games won't be become a liability and will take less and less resources as servers get upgraded. Automatic load balancing, always being able to connect to server near to you instead of the specific data center that runs that specific game.
Of course all that doesn't sound as sexy as massive destruction. Yet that part is the least interesting of what MS is building.

The Azure platform is progress, and the future of online game servers. CloudEngine, Cloud assisted gaming, unlimited CPU, mostly PR.

This will be the future no matter what

We have been hearing that for pushing 3 years now lol

Not specfically about Crackdown but about the Cloud in general. It is not going to make much of a difference....

Wow.... twelve pages of basically nothingness and the title of the thread still is completely wrong.
Cloudgine has NOTHING to do with XBox One as a specific benefactor.
It is a customer agnostic service that basically sells Gigaflops to whoever wants it (and pays for it, obiously).

There is no reason Playstation and PC games can not use the cloud to but the issue is the cloud really can not do things the way (some) people seem to think it can, eventually yes it will happen and it WILL make a difference but that is going to be next gen at best