Microsoft Xbox Reveal Event - May 21, 2013

[Miksu]

Azure is extremely expensive, and relatively crap compared to Amazon's services. I had the unfortunate experience of building on it about 18mths ago. I assume it's gotten better since then, but they are still playing catchup.

Azure was "reinvented" last summer and it nowadays offers most of the same features as AWS. The DNS service is still missing (Route53 at AWS) but other than that, the services are almost identical..

As is the pricing. Medium sized Linux box costs $0.12 on Azure and, surprisingly, $0.12 on AWS.

 

[Xbat]

Another thing about the cloud is no multiplatform game is going to use it unless XBone has PS2 like success.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Greenberg specifically said emerging markets were a big target on major nelson.

That's basically why these slides existed, why they expect growth.

But they just shafted everyone else. None of the features showcased in the conference work for me. Onlygames do and they have got a better hardware oer at the PS4. And I am sure at E3 Sony will pull out some Kinect crap out too as it has a 3d cam setup too.

So, why should I, who is not living in the Us, buy the Bone?

If I am big target, they have a really lousy aim !

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't know, I think I'll take an RPG with dialogue created by a talented writer and performed by a talented voice actor over machine generated quest bots anyday.

Here's a question. Are these simulated worlds going to live forever in the cloud? If I stop playing my Skyrim 2 for Xbox One am I going to find a year later all my deeds have been erased because Azure was tired of simulating a land I didn't seem to want anymore? Can games get retired from Cloud services, like an old EA sports title? Is my game only safe as long as my Xbox Live Gold membership checks clear? How will any of us play anything when Anonymous wages a month long DDOS attack on Xbox servers in anger over the used game situation?

I'll take a town with 100+ NPCs versus one with 10+. I'll take a city with potentially thousands of NPCs versus one with 10's of NPCs. Especially when the additional NPCs can theoretically have much more fully realized AI and more importantly a VASTLY greater assortment of AI to represent a teeming city than the dead ghosttowns that exist in all open world games up until now. Imagine storing 100 GB's representing potentially 1000's of different AI routines. No two players playing the single player game may end up with the same NPC AI routines in their city as the other plays. All of the AI may not be vastly different, but at least by being different you avoid the whole robotic repetitious nature of the current open world ghost towns in games. Any given player may only use a small fraction of that. Making the variety vastly different. And replays never being the same if AI "sets" are random between games but not within the same game session (including saves).

Nothing precludes the "important" story driven NPCs from having well fleshed out and voice acted dialog. And actually with the cloud that dialog could be changed and updated overtime to reflect additional content or a <<gasp>> attempt at a living world.

Those without access to the cloud just get the standard boring stuff you have now.

Another thing about the cloud is no multiplatform game is going to use it unless XBone has PS2 like success.

No access to cloud you just get the standard features on all platforms. Have access to the cloud and you potentially get enhanced features.

Then again, since PS4 and Xbox One games are going to look identical (why spend the extra effort on PS4 if you can't show it on Xbox One?) then that could explain why a developer might choose not to use the cloud for a multiplatform game. But if developers bother to use the extra power in PS4, why wouldn't they also use the extra power from the cloud, if appropriate for their game?

But they just shafted everyone else. None of the features showcased in the conference work for me. Onlygames do and they have got a better hardware oer at the PS4. And I am sure at E3 Sony will pull out some Kinect crap out too as it has a 3d cam setup too.

So, why should I, who is not living in the Us, buy the Bone?

If I am big target, they have a really lousy aim !

Phil Harrison has already stated that they will show EU specific features and partnerships (similar to what was shown for the US market) at a later date. I'm going to guess that the fragmented market in the EU makes it far harder to do these things than the fairly homogenous market that the US and Canada represent.

I'd wait until they do an announce for your territory before going into a tizzy. I can certainly understand your skepticism however after the X360 with regards to those things. But I'm guessing part of the reason Phil Harrison was brought on board was because of his extensive connections in Europe having been Sony's representative there for so long.

Regards,
SB

 

[oramay]

No access to cloud you just get the standard features on all platforms. Have access to the cloud and you potentially get enhanced features.

Then again, since PS4 and Xbox One games are going to look identical (why spend the extra effort on PS4 if you can't show it on Xbox One?) then that could explain why a developer might choose not to use the cloud for a multiplatform game. But if developers bother to use the extra power in PS4, why wouldn't they also use the extra power from the cloud, if appropriate for their game?

You mean taking advantage of the conventional computing power in a console for which the conventional production process of a game is designed to tap into, is a challenge similar in magnitude to the one presented by offloading computations to the cloud?

Don't you think meaningfully and smoothly offloading computation to the cloud so that the end user experience is significantly improved is going to require people design their game differently from the beginning, and for most developers, venture into uncharted territory of game development and post launch support for the cloud version?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Don't you think meaningfully and smoothly offloading computation to the cloud so that the end user experience is significantly improved is going to require people design their game differently from the beginning, and for most developers, venture into uncharted territory of game development and post launch support for the cloud version?

Nope. For gameplay affecting features, then a developer will definitely have to determine what is latency sensitive and what isn't. But I'm personally not thinking that most developers will want to use it for gameplay affective features, and arguably that is the least impressive use they could put the cloud to.

The most impressive uses for the cloud, IMO, is doing all the things that currently aren't done well in games and thus make them seem to lifeless and empty. Noone wants to spend expensive CPU cycles on AI for non-important NPCs. But making them less robotic and less repetitious (reusing the same AI or a very limited set of AI) would be just as large an advancement in gaming as something like HDR, physics, high res textures, tessellation, etc. And that's just a very simple example of something that could be done with little that has to be rethought.

Regards,
SB

 

[oramay]

You mean taking advantage of the conventional computing power in a console for which the conventional production process of a game is designed to tap into, is a challenge similar in magnitude to the one presented by offloading computations to the cloud?

Don't you think meaningfully and smoothly offloading computation to the cloud so that the end user experience is significantly improved is going to require people design their game differently from the beginning, and for most developers, venture into uncharted territory of game development and post launch support for the cloud version?

To Silent_buddha:

And about this part of my post? Your original statement actually hinge on this part, the second paragraph is a bit of extra details I put in. Of course, you're free to assert the cloud computing stuff is actually easier.

 

[keenism]

....Ok so I finally watched the whole thing, holy hell...maybe its just be because I dont watch TV(id rather read), Sports(Yeah I don't care to live vicariously through some billionaire's team winning), or news(propaganda much?) I just want to play games with my buddies and not f*cking pay for it(of course I come from an amazing age of hosting your OWN dedicated server) And I sure as hell don't trust an always on camera collecting various bits of data and pictures of my gf out of the shower(if ps4's is ALWAYS on, while the console isn't...screw it too i'll upgrade my gpu). I do like the integrated skype, but to hell with it if I have to pay 15 bucks a month....I'm starting to think some people here are actually Azure making posts .

Everyone needs to really get this through, Neither MS or Sony really care about games or pleasing anyone with a particular service/feature...they want your MONEY, and they want to figure out the best way to do it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

To Silent_buddha:

And about this part of my post? Your original statement actually hinge on this part, the second paragraph is a bit of extra details I put in. Of course, you're free to assert the cloud computing stuff is actually easier.

My example actually showed something that was just as easy if not easier for developers to implement than taking advantage of additional computing power in the console itself over and above what the other console has. And ways to take advantage of it that leaves ALL of the local resources available to gameplay affecting computations.

In fact, it would actually increase the local computational power available to gameplay affecting features by offloading computations that aren't latency sensitive and don't directly affect gameplay.

If the cloud is managing the AI for all the "scenery" NPCs instead of having the local processor do it, that means you have that much more computational power to dedicated to whatever you want. Not only that you can increase the amount of computations used by those AI to make them more lifelike and more varied without having to compromise on how much power to use for your actual gameplay.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

(of course I come from an amazing age of hosting your OWN dedicated server)

That should actually make you like the Xbox One then. As some are saying that Microsoft might be pushing for the end of P2P multiplayer and moving back to having dedicated servers for multiplayer (like Unreal Tournament, Quake, Quake 2, etc.)

Granted you won't be able to host it yourself, and you don't want to pay for multiplayer.

Which makes me wonder what you'd do if Sony decided to move multiplayer into PSN+?

Regards,
SB

 

[kots]

Perhaps you missed the announcement of the new 300,000 servers going online this year?

Is the backend exclusive? No, but the only real competitors are amazon and google. Sony has neither the expertise nor the capital to replicate that.

Probably to gather your data , approve your game installs and checking your online availability every 24hrs.

 

[Bagel seed]

Official brand guidelines: http://news.xbox.com/~/media/Images...ing/Branding/XboxOneBrandGuidelines052013.pdf

Must use the full name... grr. No acronyms or anything.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Claim that The voice command inputs during the conference were prbly fake :
http://me.ign.com/en/news/11383/fyi-the-xbox-one-voice-commands-weren-t-in-real-time


Also, when Yusuf said XbOx Game and switched to Forza, it wasn't a realtime forza game playing, it was just a part of the trailer later shown. It was just a video ! So the smooth switching we saw from tv to game to tv wasn't really real there. That was something I noticed then and there during the conference too. But if that wasn't game, then there is a complete chance that we were just watching a presentation on cue.

 

[Phil]

My example actually showed something that was just as easy if not easier for developers to implement than taking advantage of additional computing power in the console itself over and above what the other console has. And ways to take advantage of it that leaves ALL of the local resources available to gameplay affecting computations.

In fact, it would actually increase the local computational power available to gameplay affecting features by offloading computations that aren't latency sensitive and don't directly affect gameplay.

I'm actually not all that convinced you'll free up anything if you are talking about AI. If anything, I think that data like that will most likely be downloaded and then executed and processed locally. I see a cloud far more useful to store states of a 'living city' or the possibility to use the computational power in the cloud to evolve the living landscape while you go offline with your Xbox.

Also, if you are going to have thousands of NPCs in a persistant world that are calculated within the cloud, you are also going to substantially increase the bandwidth to your clients worldwide. What about collision detection etc? Sure - you can all do that in a centralized fashion, but you also have to remember that there are boundaries here as well to how playable something like this remains, especially if you are aiming for 30fps and not some slideshow game with huge latency issues.

I'm as excited about what a cloud can bring to next generation games as the next guy, but the possibilities are not limitless.

And it takes a lot of skill and development time (in other words money) to actually get it right too.

I think the possibilities are exciting none the less. Just not sure about how feasabile or realistic those possibilities are at this time however in expectation of what next generation will actually bring to the table where this is concerned.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

For all that chatter, i think the cloud will be used only for MP by devs.

Also, someone frm MS said cloud can be used to get 128 players in matches, we have already seen 256 on current gen without reaching for the clouds. Cloud talk is fluff for now. Either they show it right now, working and working well,, otherwise I can also make concept videos and talk thru it for hours.

 

[mboeller]

The differences here though, are that MS's decisions are not going to vastly increase the BOM of their device

Really? I think the TOF-sensor with all the necessary equipment alone is rather expensive. At least I have read on other forums that professional systems cost >>1000 dollar.

I was only able to find one price however. 490,- euros for a pmd vision camboard nano http://www.pmdtec.com/html/pdf/order_CamBoard_nano.pdf

So kinect2 could very well be the "BluRay of the XBone"

edit: two cheaper ones from TI:

http://www.softkinetic.com/fr-be/products/depthsensecameras.aspx

...249 - 299,- Dollar

edit2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-flight_camera

 

[DJ12]

Claim that The voice command inputs during the conference were prbly fake :
http://me.ign.com/en/news/11383/fyi-the-xbox-one-voice-commands-weren-t-in-real-time


Also, when Yusuf said XbOx Game and switched to Forza, it wasn't a realtime forza game playing, it was just a part of the trailer later shown. It was just a video ! So the smooth switching we saw from tv to game to tv wasn't really real there. That was something I noticed then and there during the conference too. But if that wasn't game, then there is a complete chance that we were just watching a presentation on cue.

I had a strong belief that this was true during the presentation , but only because you dont want to show its not actually as responsive as they made out or for it not to work at all.

At least it turned off the feed for everyone watching at home woth their kinect plugged so thats proof of sone of the technology at least lol

 

[James Car]

For all that chatter, i think the cloud will be used only for MP by devs.

Also, someone frm MS said cloud can be used to get 128 players in matches, we have already seen 256 on current gen without reaching for the clouds. Cloud talk is fluff for now. Either they show it right now, working and working well,, otherwise I can also make concept videos and talk thru it for hours.

Cloud 2013 = CGI 2005

Both were intentionally misleading with representing what their console capabilities would/could be.

I'll say this for MS in that regard though ... at least they didn't through up a video of a breathtakingly realistic "Halo 5" which was "only possible because of the cloud" when in fact it was just a promo video designed to look like real-time footage.

Having said that, with as far back as this project has been in development, and knowing they'd be behind the competition, why would they not have something to show for the reveal which did utilize the cloud in any meaningful way?

Seems to me they are years away from their cloud implementation being ready for primetime, which leaves plenty of time for the competition to catch up.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If the cloud is only introduced as an idea, it might never happen. Wouldn't be the first time someone suggested a tech or use of a console that never materialised (Ken Kutaragi's numerous visionary ideas that never amounted to anything...). I certainly wouldn't buy XB1 trusting it'll get an online boost - I'd have to see it with my own eyes.

 

[BoardBonobo]

I'm going to make a confession...

I dont care about indies

There I said it.

But todays Indies are tomorrows AAA squad. It's useless concentrating on talent that is already matured and proven if you have nothing to follow in the future... That's something that could have quite a massive impact a few years down the line.

[edit]

I've just realised what it was about the whole reveal that I found unappealing. It was because the whole thing wasn't like an xbox reveal. It seemed more like just another MS product in the same vein as Windows 8. Nothing special about it just a lot of smoke and mirrors.