Server based game augmentations. The transition to cloud. Really possible?

[Shifty Geezer]

There is also the possibility of player analysis on a group level to alter the game....

For multiplayer games, that can be done on the server, so it's nothing new to cloud computing unless the algorithms are insanely complex needing super-computers.

For you idea of a game tuning gameplay, can't that also be done locally? Finish the game, and while you're reviewing gameplay stats or whatever, it cooks up some numbers that it feeds back into the game next time you play. Again, only impossible if the algorithms are insanely complex. Which makes sense . That why distributed computing exists, to deal with massively demanding jobs. A few stats analysis for single player hardly seems worthwhile. I suppose one advantage of the cloud is it can be working while the console is powered down.

 

[JPT]

I think that basic idea is also doable on local storage like a HDD. I am not sure if it makes sense to waste huge server resources for keeping all kinds of game states that the consumer may or may not revisit.

-- snip --

For things to be on the safe side the things that are calculated through the cloud should be related to experiences that happen instantly and do not last in time and leave game world states for the HDD to handle

I agree a lot of this can be stored on the HDD, but there are possibilities doing timed changes across worlds. Or even like that snake game for PS3 where everybody contributed to build a snake out to mars or something. These are cool ideas that can be pushed forward and give us new type of experiences.
IMHO I think we will see more of this stuff, than offload calculations to the cloud ala offload stuff to SPU as today on the PS3.

 

[Silenti]

I haven't seen this brought up yet so forgive me if it has already been mentioned. Between the min. available cloud resources (cores and storage MS have stated WILL be available on a per user basis) and the Kinect voice controls, my first thought is interactive conversation for nearly any game. Think Mass Effect, Skyrim, GTAx, hell any game with an interactive cut scene, and take it to a whole new level.

I'm not sure about the cost of that option from a development standpoint. I have forgotten the exact details, but I do remember an absurd amount of space being used for 360/ps3 gen game for the interactive conversation mp3 files. This way you could constantly update/ expand. Just a thought.

 

[Cjail]

DF weights in.

 

[Billy Idol]

DF weights in.

Very good read. Sounds sound.

 

[ninzel]

Great article and very educational for someone like myself. I didn't realize there was so much stuff that didn't need to be real time. I always assumed the everything happens instantly in a game but I guess in anything there's always an aspect of relativity.
Still at the end the article I can't say that it completely erased my skepticism.

 

[Arwin]

I agree with most of the article. Here's my response I also posted in the comments:

Good article.

I personally think that it's more likely to be used for running processes that can continue while you're away from your Xbox. For instance, in Forza you can trade cars, paintjobs, parts and what not, and you could have this whole process running in the cloud for each user, and allow you to interact with it using Smartglass or a webbrowser, even just designing new logos and art for on your car using your tablet or PC, and then have the cloud components and storage make that available to you and/or other players in-game. That's not to say that you can't do something like that without Microsoft's brand of Cloud setup, but there are definite advantages of having bits of such hardware reserved per user.

And of course you could easily expand this to extended save-game systems for other games as well, for instance a Skyrim style RPG could save all world state that has changed through your interaction with it, and add background processes that keep the world in flow even during your absence. I think there's a lot that can be done with this, and there could be some definite advantages if developers can get a standardised API for creating and supporting such features that are tightly integrated with Microsoft.

However, another question I have not seen answered is if these would be available for Gold users only, or for Silver as well? Business wise it would make a lot more sense if this was Gold only - it would be relatively easy to hook up such server-side components to online game experiences. But that also means that points about giving the Xbox a lot more power in general would be a little misleading.

And for multi-platform developers, I would suspect they would be strongly inclined to provide their own servers for this purpose, so that they could provide such features to all the platforms they choose to support, in whatever way they want to.

 

[Rurouni]

That's a good use of the cloud. But what I'm wondering is why MS need to tell that it will be 3x of the Xbox1 computing power? Are they really gonna give the equivalent of 3x power for each console sold or it is just a marketing speak? If MS do give it then what can the devs do to utilize it 100%? I believe even with 1x of Xbox1 computing power it should be enough for cloud stuff.

 

[Arwin]

Not to mention that most of the box's power is in the GPU half, not the CPU half. And there has been no talk of CU style resources in the cloud, so multiplying Xbox * 4 as total power seems bullish to begin with.

 

[KKRT]

And of course you could easily expand this to extended save-game systems for other games as well, for instance a Skyrim style RPG could save all world state that has changed through your interaction with it, and add background processes that keep the world in flow even during your absence. I think there's a lot that can be done with this, and there could be some definite advantages if developers can get a standardised API for creating and supporting such features that are tightly integrated with Microsoft.

But here comes cost effective issue and offline issue. What with world when You have problems with cloud sync or just connection? What with multiplatform versions of this game?

As i said earlier, whole cloud concept seems more pain in the ass than actual resource. It can be good for MMOs and MP games in general, but we dont need hardware provider support for that. For SP games its more pain than a feature and i'm already feeling sorry for 1st party devs being forced to work with it.

 

[Rangers]

Not to mention that most of the box's power is in the GPU half, not the CPU half. And there has been no talk of CU style resources in the cloud, so multiplying Xbox * 4 as total power seems bullish to begin with.

there's hardly been talk of anything so that's flimsy to begin with.

there was one reference to cpu/storage (one)

And one reference to 40X 360 power (which is not possible with only CPU in cloud)

So I'd say we have two references that conflict at best.

It seems like people are so scared and rushing to downplay this, I dont get it? If it's so impossible to work why are you worried?

It's like the people on GAf who say "This is such bullshit Microsoft's claim! But sony can do the same thing with Gakai anyway!" (and I have seen people do this in the very same post, and the same sentiment is common on B3D)

Wait, so it's bullshit but Sony can do it too so it's not bullshit?

 

[ninzel]

This most important thing I took away from the article was that even as the internet and what's possible from cloud improves, hardware and what can be done locally will improve.
As a consumer if I'm buying the XboxOne in the near future, I can't let cloud be a big factor in my decision.

 

[Arwin]

But here comes cost effective issue and offline issue. What with world when You have problems with cloud sync or just connection? What with multiplatform versions of this game?

As i said earlier, whole cloud concept seems more pain in the ass than actual resource. It can be good for MMOs and MP games in general, but we dont need hardware provider support for that. For SP games its more pain than a feature and i'm already feeling sorry for 1st party devs being forced to work with it.

I don't know. I think that the principle of having a server-side bit of resource reserved per user shareable among different suppliers could be really efficient. Nobody needs to exponentially reserve server-side resources and have day one / general peak handling nightmares, worry about server resources going unused and needing them to be freed for other stuff temporarily in order to make financial sense. You can just count on that every user that plays your game has his own server side resources. If he starts playing another game, those same resources can be used for another game without any overhead on the hardware provider side.

So in theory, I actually quite like the concept. There are a bunch of practical limitations to overcome for multi-platform titles unless Microsoft could rent out such services per user to companies who would then link such features also to other platforms, but otherwise there is good potential that it could really help Microsoft's own studios in particular to provide a consistently high level and highly available set of game specific services.

 

[Lycan]

there's hardly been talk of anything so that's flimsy to begin with.

there was one reference to cpu/storage (one)

And one reference to 40X 360 power (which is not possible with only CPU in cloud)

So I'd say we have two references that conflict at best.

It seems like people are so scared and rushing to downplay this, I dont get it? If it's so impossible to work why are you worried?

It's like the people on GAf who say "This is such bullshit Microsoft's claim! But sony can do the same thing with Gakai anyway!" (and I have seen people do this in the very same post, and the same sentiment is common on B3D)

Wait, so it's bullshit but Sony can do it too so it's not bullshit?

 

[BoardBonobo]

Every buyer who falls for the 5Teraflop, infinite worlds PR BS is going to be a disappointed voice of criticism eventually.

The whole MS spin on cloud computing is nothing but a pipe dream, the basic infrastructure needed to support it in any meaningful way simply doesn't exist yet. I don't understand why MS is digging such a big whole for themselves? They had the perfect strategy with the 360, why throw it all away now. Have they fallen foul of hubris in a big way?

 

[Nesh]

there's hardly been talk of anything so that's flimsy to begin with.

there was one reference to cpu/storage (one)

And one reference to 40X 360 power (which is not possible with only CPU in cloud)

So I'd say we have two references that conflict at best.

It seems like people are so scared and rushing to downplay this, I dont get it? If it's so impossible to work why are you worried?

It's like the people on GAf who say "This is such bullshit Microsoft's claim! But sony can do the same thing with Gakai anyway!" (and I have seen people do this in the very same post, and the same sentiment is common on B3D)

Wait, so it's bullshit but Sony can do it too so it's not bullshit?

Did we really say its bullshit for MS and Sony can do it?

 

[Lalaland]

there's hardly been talk of anything so that's flimsy to begin with....
....seems like people are so scared and rushing to downplay this, I dont get it? If it's so impossible to work why are you worried?

It's like the people on GAf who say "This is such bullshit Microsoft's claim! But sony can do the same thing with Gakai anyway!" (and I have seen people do this in the very same post, and the same sentiment is common on B3D)

Wait, so it's bullshit but Sony can do it too so it's not bullshit?

No one is 'worried' we just can't see how it's supposed to work given latency and bandwidth concerns. Also no-one here here has proposed Gaikai because that's a remote compute solution and nothing to do with distributed compute. Put down the fanboi pitchforks and offer a tech perspective if you can. If you read the actual thread you'll find the same mixture of speculation (distributed AI, at distance physics, lighting) that are in the DF article with the same 'but how?' with regard to b/w and latency as expressed by DF. It's for MS to provide the extraordinary evidence to back up their extraordinary claims.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

there's hardly been talk of anything so that's flimsy to begin with.

The DF article provides quotes and links. We have a 40x XBox360 and a "for each XB1 sold, we'll have 3 in the cloud."

But that's immaterial to this discussion which is platform agnostic.

It seems like people are so scared and rushing to downplay this, I dont get it? If it's so impossible to work why are you worried?

Wait, so it's bullshit but Sony can do it too so it's not bullshit?

Understand their comments from the POV of consumers. Cloud computing is a reason to buy XB1. If it doesn't work, it's not a good reason to buy. If Sony can do it too, it's not an exclusive feature. So the, "it can't be done, and Sony can do it anyway," remarks just summarise this thinking in choosing between platforms.

But again, that's immaterial to this thread. This thread is a platform agnostic investigation. "It does/doesn't work" is the question. "Sony (and independent 3rd parties) can do it do" are implied - it's not like MS has patented remote computing.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Every buyer who falls for the 5Teraflop, infinite worlds PR BS is going to be a disappointed voice of criticism eventually.

The whole MS spin on cloud computing is nothing but a pipe dream, the basic infrastructure needed to support it in any meaningful way simply doesn't exist yet. I don't understand why MS is digging such a big whole for themselves? They had the perfect strategy with the 360, why throw it all away now. Have they fallen foul of hubris in a big way?

For one, they never said 5Tflops and they never said infinite worlds as far as I know. We should all be quite familiar with PR at this point anyway. Pretty much every company in the gaming world has been guilty of overselling things and "massaging" numbers. That doesn't mean there isn't any truth to the idea. It could be vaporware. It could be useful. It's way too early to judge.

As far as infrastructure goes, I honestly don't believe it's nearly as big a problem as some people are making it out to be. In a world where we have telecommuting, Amazon Web Services, vmware cloud computing, Oracle cloud computing etc, I'm supposed to believe the Internet is basically not reliable enough for them to be meaningful business decisions. If it's true the infrastructure isn't there, then why isn't anyone complaining about Gaikai being a pipe dream? How are they going to provide a PS3 worth of power for every user, to provide their backwards compatibility solution, when the Internet is just coming it its own. What if I live in a remote village in the Mountains? No backwards compatibility for me? No streaming demos for me? Who is going to pay for the resources and the bandwidth?

The idea of having a client that connects to a giant web application that processes data is not exactly science fiction. We do it all the itme. The difference with games is you have real-time requirements, which is not an issue when you're writing custom queries at home to pull data out of a massive database. A game server is basically a cloud service. I don't see why it couldn't be seen that way, even though they existed long before the cloud buzzword showed up. So what does a game server become if it can talk to all of the other game servers, and to other web services?

Microsoft's infrastructure is building up. They have 8 large data centers worldwide and more coming. That is something publishers and developers cannot do for themselves. Without relying on AWS, cloud services would not be available to game developers in a meaningful way. We'll see how the monetary side of things works out.

I'm not particularly interested in how many flops are available in the cloud that are dedicated to one user, or how much bandwidth. Look at Demons' Souls. That is a single-player game augmented with multiplayer data. Now imagine the service running the game is much much bigger and much much smarter. What can be done with that? We're talking about an infrastructure that cannot be built by a developer, or even a publisher. Yeah, it isn't free, but EA doesn't have its own data centers. When you play EA Sports games online, the "EA Servers" are rented from a third party.

 

[Nesh]

For one, they never said 5Tflops and they never said infinite worlds as far as I know. We should all be quite familiar with PR at this point anyway. Pretty much every company in the gaming world has been guilty of overselling things and "massaging" numbers. That doesn't mean there isn't any truth to the idea. It could be vaporware. It could be useful. It's way too early to judge.

As far as infrastructure goes, I honestly don't believe it's nearly as big a problem as some people are making it out to be. In a world where we have telecommuting, Amazon Web Services, vmware cloud computing, Oracle cloud computing etc, I'm supposed to believe the Internet is basically not reliable enough for them to be meaningful business decisions. If it's true the infrastructure isn't there, then why isn't anyone complaining about Gaikai being a pipe dream? How are they going to provide a PS3 worth of power for every user, to provide their backwards compatibility solution, when the Internet is just coming it its own. What if I live in a remote village in the Mountains? No backwards compatibility for me? No streaming demos for me? Who is going to pay for the resources and the bandwidth?

The idea of having a client that connects to a giant web application that processes data is not exactly science fiction. We do it all the itme. The difference with games is you have real-time requirements, which is not an issue when you're writing custom queries at home to pull data out of a massive database. A game server is basically a cloud service. I don't see why it couldn't be seen that way, even though they existed long before the cloud buzzword showed up. So what does a game server become if it can talk to all of the other game servers, and to other web services?

Microsoft's infrastructure is building up. They have 8 large data centers worldwide and more coming. That is something publishers and developers cannot do for themselves. Without relying on AWS, cloud services would not be available to game developers in a meaningful way. We'll see how the monetary side of things works out.

I'm not particularly interested in how many flops are available in the cloud that are dedicated to one user, or how much bandwidth. Look at Demons' Souls. That is a single-player game augmented with multiplayer data. Now imagine the service running the game is much much bigger and much much smarter. What can be done with that? We're talking about an infrastructure that cannot be built by a developer, or even a publisher. Yeah, it isn't free, but EA doesn't have its own data centers. When you play EA Sports games online, the "EA Servers" are rented from a third party.

We dont talk much about Gaikai because we have seen it in action and there isnt much to talk about anymore until we see it in the PS4. Sony did not present it as something as big as MS's cloud based augmentations which is still "unknown" to us in practice. It is also implied that this feature will be part of the primary function of the console->game performance, gameplay opportunities and visual fidelity. It is supposed in theory to be used to cover the performance gap between the two consoles.
Gaikai is irrelevant to the normal gaming experience expected from the console: running a game locally like we always did for decades. MS wants to change that. Hence why we dont talk about Gaikai as much