Sony Interactive Entertainment first party and Cloud Strategy powered by Microsoft Azure

That doesn't sound like a benefit of cloud but rather developers deciding to not vary weather or simulate any kind of real world changes? The benefit of cloud is to have accurate real-time weather based on the location but the lack of transition isn't the fault of no cloud.
Yes this is true, Iams conclusion is incorrect nothing is stopping there being different changing weather. eg non cloud based weather -> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Weather+in++red+dead+Redemption+2
Yes having the ability to pull the actual weather at a place in real time is technically cool but for gameplay will prolly make the game worse. Its like my game I recently made it so you can choose where in the world you are so the sun position/daylight/night changes depending on what you put in. first I stuck in here barcelona so coords N 41 E 2, tried other numbers and it seem further from the equator both looked better (and gave you slightly longer daylight (depening on the time of year of course), S 47 looked the best) now if I added weather based on whats actually happening at the place it would be pretty boring, for the next 4 months theres gonna be nary a cloud in the sky, whilst it rains a handful of times a year. Like I often say reality is often boring.
Its like with RDR2 its fictional world looks like its made up of all over the USA according to the following page. (yet its only 29 miles square, if you took any part of the USA its not gonna vary as much as they used in their map)
https://www.shacknews.com/article/109148/where-does-red-dead-redemption-2-take-place

btw I thought the showcase of the cloud was crackdown 3? ;)
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-zone-what-happened-to-the-power-of-the-cloud

but seriously if you want a better showcase of the power of the cloud than flight simulation just choose practically any multiplayer game and even more so ones with persistent worlds, eg for MS a better example is minecraft
 
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wow that looks a lot worse than I remembered, look at that development budget (even if you double it, 80s inflation), how things have changed
 
Yes this is true, Iams conclusion is incorrect nothing is stopping there being different changing weather. eg non cloud based weather -> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Weather+in++red+dead+Redemption+2
Yes having the ability to pull the actual weather at a place in real time is technically cool but for gameplay will prolly make the game worse. Its like my game I recently made it so you can choose where in the world you are so the sun position/daylight/night changes depending on what you put in. first I stuck in here barcelona so coords N 41 E 2, tried other numbers and it seem further from the equator both looked better (and gave you slightly longer daylight (depening on the time of year of course), S 47 looked the best) now if I added weather based on whats actually happening at the place it would be pretty boring, for the next 4 months theres gonna be nary a cloud in the sky, whilst it rains a handful of times a year. Like I often say reality is often boring.
Its like with RDR2 its fictional world looks like its made up of all over the USA according to the following page. (yet its only 29 miles square, if you took any part of the USA its not gonna vary as much as they used in their map)
https://www.shacknews.com/article/109148/where-does-red-dead-redemption-2-take-place

btw I thought the showcase of the cloud was crackdown 3? ;)
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-zone-what-happened-to-the-power-of-the-cloud

but seriously if you want a better showcase of the power of the cloud than flight simulation just choose practically any multiplayer game and even more so ones with persistent worlds, eg for MS a better example is minecraft

Real time real world data makes a game better or worse depending on the game. For Flight Simulator it's obviously a huge win because it's a simulator based on the real world. It's most passionate fans (the ones that spend hundreds or thousands of USD on it) are actual pilots who want something that mirrors the real world as closely as possible. Everything form the flight model, to atmospherics, to geography. How much is simulation accuracy valued? Real world commercial pilots have been using it for decades as a way to keep their piloting skills sharp when now actually flying their routes as well as to familiarize themselves with new routes should they be required to start flying a different route than what they are currently flying.

However, if your gameplay is tied to in game weather, like for example some rare monster in an RPG that you're farming to get its rare drop only spawns during the night with an overcast sky and a full moon ... well, real time real world weather data being used probably isn't a great idea. :p

So, the value of real world data being incorporated into a game in real time will obviously depend on the game and what the game is attempting to achieve. Personally, I'd love it if a driving simulator used real world data incorporated in real time to model traffic and weather in the game. Obviously a more arcade oriented driving game wouldn't want to do that, but for a driving simulator I'd love it.

One of the things that has always been a bit off-putting for me in driving simulators was the arbitrary weather (when the game even bothered to present weather effects). Rain is often there for the entire race or not there. It would snow for the entire race or it wouldn't. The few attempts to vary conditions during a race always feel artificial and too abrupt. I'd love it if weather variability mirrored the real world. But then, I love accurate simulations more than arcade like facsimiles of a simulation. YMMV.

One area, I'd love to see advancement in is more work towards global physics simulations. Things that aren't directly player interactable, which would make them less latency sensitive. For example, pushing a box is directly player interactable, while setting a bomb on a structure and then triggering it remotely (either timed or via remote control) isn't. Combined with a shared world, this could be absolutely incredible. Going back to the driving simulator example, imagine crashing into a building and having accurate physics based destruction (generally too expensive on local machines) which is shared with everyone in that game world instance. Where doing something like this for an individual gamer in a solo instance could be considered too expensive, if it is instead shared with 20 or 100 gamers in a game world instance? The cost is then amortized/shared with a large number of gamers. I know crackdown was supposed to show things like this, but it wasn't quite there.

Hell, it's pretty incredible that a 12 year old game (Battlefield Bad Company) has more environmental destruction than almost any AAA game released since (lots of Indie games have that level of destruction or more). Despite having SIGNIFICANTLY more hardware power, the last generation of consoles regressed in so many areas WRT gameplay compared to the PS3/X360 generation. Prime example of prettier pixels being far more important in AAA games than actual gameplay affecting tech. /sad.

Regards,
SB
 
Real time real world data makes a game better or worse depending on the game. For Flight Simulator it's obviously a huge win because it's a simulator based on the real world. It's most passionate fans (the ones that spend hundreds or thousands of USD on it) are actual pilots who want something that mirrors the real world as closely as possible. Everything form the flight model, to atmospherics, to geography. How much is simulation accuracy valued? Real world commercial pilots have been using it for decades as a way to keep their piloting skills sharp when now actually flying their routes as well as to familiarize themselves with new routes should they be required to start flying a different route than what they are currently flying.
that doesnt even make sense, and its not even what MS flight simulation markets, they market inputing condition X (eg wind 30knots from the NW) and trying to fly/land the plane in those conditions.

like Pilot X could not / could land this plane at these conditions, can you do the same/better in the the same conditions

OK pilots reallife whenever we try to land at fort laudadale with 80phm winds from the NE the plane crashes cause we land at the wrong angle/speed
so now lets practice with the current realtimewind conditions (powered by the cloud) from the SW and not the conditions the pilot was experiencing at the time of the crash
-- plane lands fine -- ppl cheer
yet next time in RL someone trys to land with 80mph winds from the NE, everyone dies and they are like in court (yes I know strong NE winds were gonna be difficult but I didnt want to practice that, cause whenever I landed at that airport in the sim they used whatever winds were currently happening and they never threw these difficult winds at me(*)) its the power of the cloud -- jury non guilty, cant argue with the cloud

(*)non weather related, but --neil armstrong 1969--. Prepare yourself
 
I'm anti-cloud gaming. No matter the platform.

I say that while also getting rid of all my old CDs, as they're cluttering the house. My opinion may change when they can fix (like seriously fix) the latency issues. I think I'm very sensitive to input delays.
I was in the same boat, but there are games I sometimes want to try but don't want to be bothered downloading. I recently played through Wolfenstein Youngblood, for example. The reviews on that game were mixed, but I liked the other games in the series. I played through the first level streamed to my phone and liked it. So I installed the game on my PC and played it "for real". I don't know if I'll ever want to play a whole game streamed, unless it's a turn based game or something, but I love how fast it is to try things.

Also, a game like Youngblood, the latency was extremely noticeable. I played Dragon Age Inquisition before Youngblood and Dragon Age was much more acceptable. But I think DA is a 30hz game and Youngblood is 60.
 
I was in the same boat, but there are games I sometimes want to try but don't want to be bothered downloading. I recently played through Wolfenstein Youngblood, for example. The reviews on that game were mixed, but I liked the other games in the series. I played through the first level streamed to my phone and liked it. So I installed the game on my PC and played it "for real". I don't know if I'll ever want to play a whole game streamed, unless it's a turn based game or something, but I love how fast it is to try things.

Also, a game like Youngblood, the latency was extremely noticeable. I played Dragon Age Inquisition before Youngblood and Dragon Age was much more acceptable. But I think DA is a 30hz game and Youngblood is 60.

I find streaming from my PS5 to my phone to be noticeably laggy. Won't ever try it again. Not sure if they manage it across the local network or if across the internet.

You raise a good point, maybe streaming is better suited to demos.

I'm not remotely surprised that Google Stadia was an abject failure. Expecting streaming to replace home consoles in the present is the kind of thing that gives board members a hard-on but totally fails the consumer.
 
I find streaming from my PS5 to my phone to be noticeably laggy. Won't ever try it again. Not sure if they manage it across the local network or if across the internet.

You raise a good point, maybe streaming is better suited to demos.

I'm not remotely surprised that Google Stadia was an abject failure. Expecting streaming to replace home consoles in the present is the kind of thing that gives board members a hard-on but totally fails the consumer.
Yeah, it's not a replacement for me, just an added bonus. I use it to demo games and sometimes do Gamepass quests. If they add Flight Sim I will probably play that a bit as well. I feel like that's a game it would take longer to download than the time I would play it, and I don't think the latency will be game breaking. I just want to see the pretty.
 
Yeah, Flight Sim is another fine example of when it could be used. I can't imagine that game requiring low latency controls. :p

You've definitely talked me around to the idea a bit.
 
I was in the same boat, but there are games I sometimes want to try but don't want to be bothered downloading. I recently played through Wolfenstein Youngblood, for example. The reviews on that game were mixed, but I liked the other games in the series. I played through the first level streamed to my phone and liked it. So I installed the game on my PC and played it "for real". I don't know if I'll ever want to play a whole game streamed, unless it's a turn based game or something, but I love how fast it is to try things.

Also, a game like Youngblood, the latency was extremely noticeable. I played Dragon Age Inquisition before Youngblood and Dragon Age was much more acceptable. But I think DA is a 30hz game and Youngblood is 60.

I haven't traveled due to covid but it will be nice to stream a game when I am away instead of having to bring dedicated hardware. Now I can just use my surface
 
I have an unlimited hot spot from work. I get good enough speeds. Was at my parents winter home in florida a few weeks ago to check up on it and do maintance and was able to play just fine

Cool. Joking aside, I didn't know what the state of mobile data in the US. The UK's pretty good on wrt just being able to turn your phone into a hotspot on most contracts.
 
Cool. Joking aside, I didn't know what the state of mobile data in the US. The UK's pretty good on wrt just being able to turn your phone into a hotspot on most contracts.

It depends on what provider and where your at. All the major providers are moving to 5G now and I don't remember the last time I didn't have 4g some where.

Also most broad band providers will also have hot spots. I have cablevision and my brother in law has verzion so we share access. So at almost any location I can either have really fast 5g from my mobile plan or wifi from my broad band provider. Most spots for the broadband are restaurants or public areas.

MS lags behind on modems the majority of the time I'm using a hotspot on my phone. The surface pro 7 + only has LTE I believe. I hope the neo comes with 5G
 
I have an unlimited hot spot from work. I get good enough speeds. Was at my parents winter home in florida a few weeks ago to check up on it and do maintance and was able to play just fine
Florida has winters? What's that, like a blizzard of crazy people?
 
Florida has winters? What's that, like a blizzard of crazy people?

Like 4 years ago it was in the 30s at the start of January .

My parents originally bought a house for vacations in kissimee in the 80s . It was like 70k for a 4 bedroom 3 bath new construction. They have kept it all this time. Once my sisters and I were adults my mother would often go down to Florida for the winter , its warmer than jersey and you'd get no snow. Once my dad retired about 12 years ago now he started to go down for the winters also.

So they spend Oct - March in Florida and come back up here where its ironically cooler for the summer months. Last year they stayed here through the winter to help my sister with the kids and to be close to us because of covid.
 
Did anymore details on Sony using Azure ever come out? I think I assumed it would eventually be handling cloud based play for Sony, but I don't remember hearing anything more of it.
 
Did anymore details on Sony using Azure ever come out? I think I assumed it would eventually be handling cloud based play for Sony, but I don't remember hearing anything more of it.

Not a chirp.
 
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