The XBox Thread - Page 154

On June 15 2013 11:13 KadaverBB wrote:
Could you guys please stop or take it to PM? This topic was about The XBox One at one point

There have been numerous reports coming in from multiple Best Buy locations where Nintendo is holding its special E3 experience that Microsoft employees have been talking to people on line asking why they would bother buying a Wii U when the Xbox One’s release is right around the corner.

On June 15 2013 11:18 fuzzy_panda wrote:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/06/microsoft-employees-ambush-wii-u-best-buy-events-to-promote-xbox-one/

lol Microsoft...it just won't stop digging its grave! You're making my choice for the next-gen far too easy

On June 15 2013 11:18 fuzzy_panda wrote:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/06/microsoft-employees-ambush-wii-u-best-buy-events-to-promote-xbox-one/

lol Microsoft...it just won't stop digging its grave! You're making my choice for the next-gen far too easy

On June 14 2013 23:55 Acrofales wrote:
Cloud computing is a myth. It cannot exist the way they claim they do. The reason it works for that NASA thing is because it is ONE client with a big task. But Xbone players aren't ONE client, they are millions of clients, all requiring DIFFERENT tasks. That means the tasks have to be faaaar smaller. Imagine it this way:

You have a desktop PC and an xbox. Your xbox can use your desktop pc's clockcycles to compute stuff. If your desktop is idle, your xbox can use all your desktop's processing power to compute stuff. That is awesome. However, if your desktop is busy with something (for instance, your brother is playing a videogame of his own on it), then there are very few free clockcycles for it to use.

Now the same happens with the Xbone. Lets say an average of 200,000 gamers use their Xbone at primetime per serverpark. That means they either have a HELL of a lot of servers (far more than Blizzard does for WoW), or the extra processing power per user will be negligible. Now add latency to it: if there are 1000s of NPCs walking around doing stuff in the game, these have to have been computed BEFOREHAND, because you cannot simply outsource something over the internet without far larger delays than local computing will take. Now that means that the game is either extremely linear (so the game knows where you're going and how long it should take you to get there), or lots of extra stuff will be computed, just in case your next decision is to go left (whereas you actually go right). The former obviously works for some games, the latter just means that all those overloaded servers will have to work even harder to give you even a marginal increase in performance.

Now I'm not saying its useless. A good developer could probably optimise this backend computing, for instance by finding users requiring similar computations and only performing that computation once (for instance, the same crowd of people only needs to be computed once, and sent to 100s of users simultaneously). The Drivatar idea is also a pretty awesome idea for using crowdsourcing/cloud computing (although the name is retarded). But simply saying "it will happen in the cloud!" is about the same as saying "the toothfairy will give you money". There are serious bandwidth and processing limits on what can actually be done with cloud computing.

As a final example of the difference between cloud and local, I suggest you look at the responsiveness and featureset of googledocs as compared to a locally (or even a company license run on a dedicated server) installed office suite (MS Office or something else): it can do less, and does so slower. However, it offers serious advantages: your documents are automatically available when you move between systems, other people can see your changes and make their own, etc.
If developers manage to take advantage of THAT aspect (reuse of processing, or using people's choices in a crowdsourced AI, or something else that can use the socially centralized aspect of cloud computing), then the cloud computing really will offer massive advantages (although it's still not something Xbone exclusive... PSN is moving in a similar direction WITHOUT requiring it: it's opt-in, not forced). However, simply waving your hands and saying the cloud will offer massive computing power? Look at Simcity.

On June 15 2013 12:41 Sackings wrote:
Even if NA splits 50/50, PS4 will probably dominate everywhere else

On June 15 2013 12:11 paralleluniverse wrote:
This doesn't appear to be an epic beatdown yet.

According to IGN, the share of preorders is split as follows:
Xbox One: 40%
PS4: 60%

On June 15 2013 14:35 Excludos wrote:
To the people saying a few pages back that calling it the "XBone" isn't helping..I'm sorry, but Microsoft clearly couldn't be bothered to think through the name of its new xbox to the point where its a blatant pun. Its like sending your kid to school with the name "Mike Litoris". He is going to get teased about it.