Frenetic Pony

Nextbox 1080: The Reckoning

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I'm probably going to build a new PC at some point in 2013 and it will for sure cost more than getting the XBone and PS4, so I can't really complain as far as price goes.  

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What benefit does cloud computing provide when it comes to playing games? Does it just allow for games to be smaller (i.e. not take up as much hard drive space) or give them the ability to squeeze more out of the hardware by offloading certain intensive CPU operations to another server? Aside from DRM reasons I am legitimately curious about what benefits/drawbacks come with cloud computing.

 

A big concern for me would definitely be the 500GB hard drive (in addition to all the other shit already talked about here). If a dual layer Blu-Ray can hold around 60GB and full game installs are mandatory then that hard drive sounds tiny. Even if games only used up half of that it wouldn't take long to fill up a hard drive of that size. 

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What benefit does cloud computing provide when it comes to playing games? Does it just allow for games to be smaller (i.e. not take up as much hard drive space) or give them the ability to squeeze more out of the hardware by offloading certain intensive CPU operations to another server? Aside from DRM reasons I am legitimately curious about what benefits/drawbacks come with cloud computing.

It would help with cases where a lot of computation produces little data, allowing your console to download it with your limited bandwidth. Oh, and it has to be optional for single player games in case they don't have an Internet connection. Suffice to say, the use-cases look pretty limited, and all signs point to MS pushing this as an alternative to just competing head-to-head on computing power, which they would lose. (And while having it built-in is nice, it's not like today's games can't use Amazon Web Services unless there's some API restrictions that I don't know about.)

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I hope that many of the people that are unhappy with the new anti-consumer policies of the next-gen consoles get deeper into tabletop gaming. I think they'll find the environment a lot more friendly and interesting!

I know, right?

I don't need a new console, I need robot friends who can play the games I want to play when I want to play them. Tabletop or not.

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Is it? Titanfall is Xbone exclusive, as far as all information I can find will tell me.

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It would help with cases where a lot of computation produces little data, allowing your console to download it with your limited bandwidth. Oh, and it has to be optional for single player games in case they don't have an Internet connection. Suffice to say, the use-cases look pretty limited, and all signs point to MS pushing this as an alternative to just competing head-to-head on computing power, which they would lose. (And while having it built-in is nice, it's not like today's games can't use Amazon Web Services unless there's some API restrictions that I don't know about.)

 

I guess we're soon going to find out just how much our internet infrastructure can handle.

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Is it? Titanfall is Xbone exclusive, as far as all information I can find will tell me.

 

Nah they just mentioned it would be on PC as well.

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Nah they just mentioned it would be on PC as well.

Yeah I forgot that at these conferences "exclusive" just means "exclusive vs the other two console platforms", and my friend just texted me back "it is on PC too, idiot", so hurray. :D

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This is funny:

 

  • Xbox One - Day One Console includes a limited edition controller, token code to unlock Day One achievement, premium packaging, and decal.

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Zso8FuP.png

 

 

I should get bonus points, because so far there's been a musician, and athlete, and some kind of musician/athlete.

 

I'm gonna' miss the Ubisoft conference. Let me know if I get anything else.

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I'm fairly sure it'll also be coming to Xbox 360, unless I heard something wildly wrong.

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This is funny:

 

  • Xbox One - Day One Console includes a limited edition controller, token code to unlock Day One achievement, premium packaging, and decal.

is that REAL

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What benefit does cloud computing provide when it comes to playing games? Does it just allow for games to be smaller (i.e. not take up as much hard drive space) or give them the ability to squeeze more out of the hardware by offloading certain intensive CPU operations to another server? Aside from DRM reasons I am legitimately curious about what benefits/drawbacks come with cloud computing.

 

A big concern for me would definitely be the 500GB hard drive (in addition to all the other shit already talked about here). If a dual layer Blu-Ray can hold around 60GB and full game installs are mandatory then that hard drive sounds tiny. Even if games only used up half of that it wouldn't take long to fill up a hard drive of that size. 

Games will be much smaller because you don't need to duplicate content. Currently a lot of content is stored multiple times on the disc in order to reduce seeking (which is really really slow). I don't think you'll see installs much larger than 10GB.

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Games will be much smaller because you don't need to duplicate content. Currently a lot of content is stored multiple times on the disc in order to reduce seeking (which is really really slow). I don't think you'll see installs much larger than 10GB.

 

Is that still the case if games are being installed to and read from the hard drive? In other words, is the seek time for a magnetic hard drive faster or slower than the seek time for a Blu-Ray disc and is it still so slow that you would see a tangible benefit from storing content multiple times to reduce this time?

 

At either rate, I am starting to wonder if Microsoft was planning to have cloud computing integrated into all or most of their games from the start and then fabricated the whole once per 24 hour check-in thing once they saw the negative reaction to 'always on' as a way to not appear that it requires a constant connection. If this is the case then that whole check-in thing could just be smoke and mirrors because you would literally have to have a constant connection to play any game that is designed to take advantage of cloud computing.

 

Edit: I just looked it up and seek times are much faster for hard drives as I would have expected but the question still stands regarding whether or not storing content multiple times on a hard drive produces a tangible benefit. My guess is that it does.

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Is that still the case if games are being installed to and read from the hard drive? In other words, is the seek time for a magnetic hard drive faster or slower than the seek time for a Blu-Ray disc and is it still so slow that you would see a tangible benefit from storing content multiple times to reduce this time?

 

At either rate, I am starting to wonder if Microsoft was planning to have cloud computing integrated into all or most of their games from the start and then fabricated the whole once per 24 hour check-in thing once they saw the negative reaction to 'always on' as a way to not appear that it requires a constant connection. If this is the case then that whole check-in thing could just be smoke and mirrors because you would literally have to have a constant connection to play any game that is designed to take advantage of cloud computing.

 

Edit: I just looked it up and seek times are much faster for hard drives as I would have expected but the question still stands regarding whether or not storing content multiple times on a hard drive produces a tangible benefit. My guess is that it does.

 

Because a game can't decide where the duplicate data is stored on the hard drive (that's the OS's job) there wouldn't be any practical gain from trying to install the same data multiple times. Even if there was, they'd be taking up resources that could be used for other things, as opposed to Bluray space that would just be empty and useless if it weren't used for duplicate data.

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Because a game can't decide where the duplicate data is stored on the hard drive (that's the OS's job) there wouldn't be any practical gain from trying to install the same data multiple times. Even if there was, they'd be taking up resources that could be used for other things, as opposed to Bluray space that would just be empty and useless if it weren't used for duplicate data.

 

Derp. You're right, I was getting a little ahead of myself and thought elmuerte was answering my first question about cloud computing. So, yay cloud computing!

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Xbone is DRMed and dangerous.

 

Titanfall looks current gen. But hey, if there's one thing we're lacking it's sci-fi/tech based shooters. Looks colourful too.

 

Sunset Overdrive is what you'd get if TF2 and Jet Set Radio banged each other senseless while Mirror's Edge watched.

 

Killer Instinct is the token bone thrown to 30 year olds wishing it was 1999.

 

Apparently Halo 5 is coming to Xbox One with revolutionary cracked visor tech. Only on Xbox One.

 

All driving games seem to be becoming one big open world shinefest with a timeshift next to the gearstick.

 

And I'm becoming (more of) a cantankerous, sarcastic arsehole. PC gaming is calling...

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