XCLOUD

[Sasqui]

I think you might have misunderstood. When I buy a game, it's either on physical media, or is digital from a site that offers DRM free games that run local to my system. I will never do cloud gaming.

Personally, I also prefer to buy physical media if it's available. Steam is a pretty big convenience when it comes to playing on multiple PCs, not to mention the prices of some games is pretty awesome, and the availability of so many games. Trade-offs both ways.

 

[notb]

Cloud computing is literally AS A SERVICE. You do not own what you use.

Just partly true. You can own the cloud (private cloud), i.e. the server that runs the game.

I use Steam via Steam Link. My desktops runs the server and the game, but I interact with a TV behind the wall.
Sure, it's not a cloud (because of the static infrastructure), but it's more or less the same experience that I expect from gaming in cloud in the future.

We focused on disadvantages and our fears, but what about advantages?
I'm a casual gamer, but I value great IQ (I'm a fan of RTRT, for example).
There's no way I'd pay for an expensive PC, since I can only play for few hours a week and I don't need it for other tasks. But with cloud this isn't a problem anymore. I can pay for few hours of 4K, Ultra, RTRT-enabled gaming when I need it and keep a simple notebook for other things. That's the whole point of cloud computing (gaming or not).

Currently I pay around $1 / hour for this setup on AWS:
8 cores, 16 GB RAM and 2 instances of GPU with 8GB each.
Not bad, right?

For those that want a full V100 just for themselves, it's $3 / h.

I wouldn't be so sure but thats not important now... So how would one "own" a game fo all time? Like... You know, I now own Witcher 3 GOTY from GOG and I would love all my games like in such a flexible format...

Owning doesn't mean having something at home. Owning means having full rights (limited only by law).
For example: if you own an apple, you can consume it, you can sell it or you can process it. Or you can use it to make something else and sell the product. And so on.

It's the same with software. If you own software, you could do anything I mentioned for apples: consume, sell or process. That is guaranteed by you being a free man in your country.
So e.g. HP can use, sell or modify Vertica *. They own it. But you can't, right?
You can't modify it and you even have limited rights to sell it. And despite the fact that you have it installed on your PC, you can't use it for commercial purposes if HP doesn't allow you (via license).
So you don't own it. You merely own a right to use it in some way. It's actually more like renting than owning.

*) Vertica is a database. I wanted to add some diversity to our MS and Adobe dominated discussions.

But if you still think having files means owning, there's an even more obvious example.
You bought 2 copies of game G (well, why not).
You store them in:
c:\games\G
c:\games\G(1)
Now you copy the first catalog to:
c:\games\G(2)

How many copies of game G do you own now?

Is that so? My PC is plugged offline almost always and Steam has offline mode and I always play offline.

The question was: what do you do when you play on cloud and you lose connection. Answer: you don't game.
BTW: why would you keep your PC offline?

I never realised I dont own the 3 TB of lossless audio media in my pc and I guess I also dont own all of my BDs and even the TV and BD player too?

You're just behind technology curve. But no one's judging.

 

[jsfitz54]

I disagree:

*marketing* is heading rapidly towards a utopian world where nobody owns anything and is fully dependant on services and rentals. In the real world, away from the internet, things do still seem to work as they always had. And when shit hits the fan, the need for what we always had suddenly becomes larger than life and all those services and dependancies are rendered useless.

The real future we are headed towards is this one:

https://www.climateandweather.net/global-warming/effects-of-climate-change.html

https://www.climate.gov/news-featur...imate-led-several-major-weather-extremes-2016

The likelihood of disaster taking out the very basics needed to provide 'services' will always keep us looking for that essential backup, will always keep us on our toes and looking for some form of self sufficiency.

So, I'm not too worried Don't buy into every hype you see and hear, its good for you. This whole 'pay per use' principle is great for the have-nots, who can feel like 'haves' once in a while. Its really just the next step in a culture of debt and living on debt, and it serves a specific group of people more than it serves others. The group most vulnerable to these offers is exactly the 'have nots'. The rest is capable of taking a step back and consider the implications of having everything as a service.

Your answer has another real life implication where people will need to grow their own vegetables and kill their own meat.
Supermarkets and malls have already trained the utopian world to be dependent on service.

 

[Vayra86]

Your answer has another real life implication where people will need to grow their own vegetables and kill their own meat.
Supermarkets and malls have already trained the utopian world to be dependent on service.

In a way it applies to everything but only to a degree. When I go to a supermarket, nobody expects me to come back and I don't pay a fixed entry fee monthly to come shopping. There is no vendor lock-in here, and there is nothing you do now that you won't be doing yourself in the future because a supermarket exists.

Another aspect is feasibility. Its not feasible to grow your own crops and there is greater efficiency to be had from farmers doing so. That efficiency gets reflected in price, product becomes cheaper.

But with gaming, there are only advantages to owning the hardware and owning the games. Its a mistake to compare bare necessities with entertainment as well. You need to eat every day, but you don't need to game every day. If gaming is no longer 'profitable' to you, you can just stop doing it. All those aspects create a highly varied marketplace where there is room for lots of different ways to 'get' content. You simply gotta eat and the supermarket is a very accessible and cheap way of doing so. So that's where we go. With cloud services, you may knock on the door and there might be something 'out of service' with no notice beforehand - and that can be anywhere in the chain, too. That is a dependancy a lot of people dislike.

And on top of all that, let's compare a loaf of bread with cloud gaming on a basic level:

- The loaf of bread you can smell, you know that some specific type of bread is what you like best, and you can go get it. You can even feel if its stale or not before buying. When you've got it, you know you can eat it, ALL of it, whenever you like. When you're not hungry you can even put half of it in the freezer for whenever.
- With cloud gaming, every single millisecond, you know that the service you're using can be cut off, be it by your little sister using the network, an ISP that fails somewhere, a server that breaks down, or the service itself having downtime. You can look at a game and expect something, but every game is different and may not be what you expect. The quality of the connection will vary, and with that the experience. And it may even turn 'stale' earlier than you like, but you'd still have to pay for it to get out of it what you wanted.

Tell me how this is beneficial The only real argument for service based economy is price and 'its easy'. But when you get down to the details of each service, the fact is you're paying for things you will never all use to an extent that makes it profitable. Perhaps for a short term you will but its simply impossible to use all those subscriptions and benefit compared to owning things and using them whenever you like. Time is a crucial, and finite resource here. You can only do so much in it and the subscription clock does keep ticking. All those 'services' are nothing more than a 180 degree turn on how we approach 'debt'. Except you now pay beforehand, in tiny bits, instead of afterwards.

 

[Sebastian-san]

So you don't own it. You merely own a right to use it in some way. It's actually more like renting than owning.

I didn't mean own the rights or company. You misunderstood, I mean keep a game for good.

But if you still think having files means owning, there's an even more obvious example.
You bought 2 copies of game G (well, why not).
You store them in:
c:\games\G
c:\games\G(1)
Now you copy the first catalog to:
c:\games\G(2

Yes I understand all that. But what I mean is having game files in a PC and being able to paly them on whatever other PC or even without internet is a lot more flexible than being limited to cloud service.

BTW: why would you keep your PC offline?

I feel safer that way. Viruses, win 10 updates, etc.

You're just behind technology curve. But no one's judging.

Did you mean Blu-ray disc quality versus streaming quality is behind the technology curve? Im sorry, but that I don't understand that. I think Blu-Ray disc video quality is far superior to any streaming video quality, even 4K.

My mum alway reads books online and then later buys the physical books that are her favorite. It is not wrong to love something so much that you want to keep it for a lifetime. Its the same to me with games.

 

[Easy Rhino]

I think you might have misunderstood. When I buy a game, it's either on physical media, or is digital from a site that offers DRM free games that run local to my system. I will never do cloud gaming.

I understand. I think the day is coming where you won't have a choice but to cloud game unless you are willing to pay up big time for a physical copy. And even DRM free games are not immune to cost factor benefits of cloud deployment.

 

[Vayra86]

Owning doesn't mean having something at home. Owning means having full rights (limited only by law).


The question was: what do you do when you play on cloud and you lose connection. Answer: you don't game.

You're just behind technology curve. But no one's judging.

Owning means being able to do with it what you want, when you want it, to most people. After that principle, we thought about all sorts of laws to protect or limit that ownership. You're mixing up cause and effect here. Law changes, but the principle of ownership really does not. That is why, for example, we tend to vouch for publishers to make a game or its code open source after they stop its servers - its that fundamental clash between law that has become obsolete and the principle of ownership. And guess what: ownership tends to win because its common sense.

The cause of cloud services: demand for easy, cheap access to gaming. That demand is not universal among all gamers, but rather a tiny niche, such as yourself. If you haven't noticed, cloud gaming isn't 'booming' at all. What's booming is owning hardware, be it a console or a fat ass PC, or even (if you speak of future) a 1200 dollar phone. Its the only growth market in consumer PCs. Its not the same cause as the one you can identify for OTHER cloud services like music and film. An important part of that is the interactive nature of gaming, but also its repetitive character. They are inherent to games and not to music or video. The latter are, for most people, one time events, and when it comes to music and video people really are a fan of, guess what: they want to own it.

An owner can game without internet. A USER can game whenever the service allows him to. You don't own a service with cloud, you own an account with your details on it and that's as far as it goes. The provider has full control over the availability of that account. It means you're a user. Not an owner.

As for that technology curve, that's just your rather limited perception of things. In fact, in terms of security and privacy that technology curve is getting corrected, now and in the future.

My mum alway reads books online and then later buys the physical books that are her favorite. It is not wrong to love something so much that you want to keep it for a lifetime.

But you're right about that curve. People think in absolutes way too much. Just because something is gaining popularity doesn't mean it will transform the world. Thát is marketing.

So, move out of the lowlands (can't grow on flooded lands) and deserts (lack of water is a serious obstacle to growing anything) to be closer to the food sources. Large scale farming can be suicide, have you read "The Grapes of Wrath". Dust bowls do happen.

Food goes in and s*** comes out. We rent food.
The fee is cancer, salmonella, e coli, MRSA and all kinds of food recalls.
Next on the playlist: Waterworld

Eh... you're dragging this way off topic with some outliers as an example. I'll ignore this.

 

[jsfitz54]

Another aspect is feasibility. Its not feasible to grow your own crops and there is greater efficiency to be had from farmers doing so. That efficiency gets reflected in price, product becomes cheaper.

So, move out of the lowlands (can't grow on flooded lands) and deserts (lack of water is a serious obstacle to growing anything) to be closer to the food sources. Large scale farming can be suicide, have you read "The Grapes of Wrath". Dust bowls do happen.

Food goes in and s*** comes out. We rent food.
The fee is cancer, salmonella, e coli, MRSA and all kinds of food recalls.
Next on the playlist: Waterworld

 

[Easy Rhino]

What I find interesting is that there is a movement in western culture to go back to growing your own crops. Urban farming is fairly popular now as people want to know that what they eat isn't contaminated with chemicals and that they don't have to rely on the supermarket to survive. I think with cloud stuff (gaming, computing, ai, etc) the pendulum will swing back to owning physical media and your own stuff.

 

[Sebastian-san]

We rent food.

That is just impossible. You cant rent food. Food is a human right. Obsession with renting, why not just own it? Next.

 

[jsfitz54]

Eh... you're dragging this way off topic with some outliers as an example. I'll ignore this.

Easy Rhino understood.

Take off the blinkers.

 

[RCoon]

Keep the ship on course peeps.

 

[notb]

I understand. I think the day is coming where you won't have a choice but to cloud game unless you are willing to pay up big time for a physical copy. And even DRM free games are not immune to cost factor benefits of cloud deployment.

Microsoft might start to roll out game streaming next year and it could become a normal offering with the next gen Xbox (2021).
It's hard to say how much this service will cost.
How much of the console price is for actual computation electronics? 60%? Maybe less. The rest is plastic, boxes, shipping, shelving and all the other waste.
IMO for a casual gaming household (~2 hours a day) streaming will be cheaper than owning a normal console and PCs are even more expensive (you spend more on the non-computation parts).

More frequent gamers will most likely choose a traditional approach.

The other thing is actual games. New are very expensive and on consoles you have limited choice of cheap sources for older titles (like GOG or Steam sales).
That's why console owners will embrace subscriptions much earlier than PC owners.
Today we only have one good offer: EA Access. It's fantastic if you're into their series (Battlefield, sport titles, Sims etc).
Both Microsoft's and Sony's subscriptions are way to expensive.

Yes I understand all that. But what I mean is having game files in a PC and being able to paly them on whatever PC without internet is flexible a lot more than playing via cloud service.

Well. The only "flexibility" you're getting is being able to disconnect the Internet - something I really haven't though about (and still don't understand).
(edit: of course it's a different story if you're gaming on a laptop, while moving around (e.g. on public transport), but I understand you're talking about a desktop at home)
Streaming gives you a flexibility of being able to play on many devices, which can be much smaller and cheaper than a console/gaming PC. It also means everything is sync'ed (saves, achievements, all in-app purchases).

Another possible flexibility is in the cloud cost itself... although we really don't know if gaming offer will offer such choice.
Sometimes you play a demanding game, sometimes one that's older and lighter. Sometimes the game really benefits from 4K and sometimes 1080p will be fine. So, at least theoretically, your charge could vary.
With normal hardware you have to buy something that covers the highest needs, so it's just partly utilized most of the time you game (and just wasted for the rest of the day, obviously).

I feel safer that way. Viruses, win 10 updates, etc.

But what about everything else? You only play games on this machine? Isn't being offline an obstacle most of the time?

Blu-ray disc quality versus streaming quality is behind the technology curve? Im sorry, but that I don't understand.

Clearly, you don't.
You say "streaming quality" like if it was some highly compressed 1080p. It doesn't have to be.
If your pocket is deep enough, there's no reason why streamed games wouldn't look better than on your PC.
Just by principle, there exists a cloud setup fast enough to run any existing game at 4K 144Hz. Cloud will always be faster than whatever you can keep at home.

Let's go further. If gaming-specialized clouds are born, they will most likely include something like RTX (ASIC RTRT computation).
You won't have to buy an expensive GPU to get a technology that:
a) only some of your favourite games support,
b) turns out not to be worth the fuss in the end.
You'll just go into the menu and select "include RTRT (+$1/hour)" whenever you fancy.

That's flexibility. That's why many research and business scenarios were already moved to cloud. And gaming will as well. It's a matter of time.

 

[Sebastian-san]

Well. The only "flexibility" you're getting is being able to disconnect the Internet

And keep the game files to install them on a newly built PC if I build another one.

But what about everything else? You only play games on this machine? Isn't being offline an obstacle most of the time?

I have a ton of music in my PC (digital version in hi-res flac or normal flac), and the games I play are singleplayer RPGs like the ones in my signature. Thats all my PC is actually for to me (my station for anime games, anime music, and anime. Mostly). (And plus several TB of Anime on external drives.) I only actually need internet connection when games need to download latest updates and when I want DLCs. I already have all the Miku albums I ever wanted (in digital and physical), so now I only rarely check out newest and best albums from stores. And if some stores are unavailable to my location for flac, I have a friend in Indonesia who gets the albums for me. So I use internet actually 1 day out of 30 for example. And reading forums and wikis I use my smartphone for that.

Clearly, you don't.
You say "streaming quality" like if it was some highly compressed 1080p. It doesn't have to be

That was a reply where I was referring to video quality not game streaming. Streaming videos quality cant compare to Physical Blu-Ray Disc video quality. I run the BD either on my PC or in the BD Player on TV.
Don't think I watch TV, I dont. I only got the big good TV for watching Hatsune Miku Magical Mirai concerts on BD. Its a loot more incredible plus the nice sound system. I bought the setup (TV+5.1 speakers) used several years ago. I see that TV alone is still ~3500 kuna on used sites so I don't intend to replace it.

Let's go further. If gaming-specialized clouds are born, they will most likely include something like RTX (ASIC RTRT computation).
You won't have to buy an expensive GPU to get a technology that:

That would be nice and convenient but nothing would be mine. Wouldn't you be happy to have one or two RTX 2080Ti cards on your table now, just for the collection, plus two in your PC? And put one on your pillow and cuddle it. Just cuddle your graphics card man. I sometimes take out my two gtx 760 and pet them...

Well I have to go for now. Bye.

 

[Vayra86]

What I find interesting is that there is a movement in western culture to go back to growing your own crops. Urban farming is fairly popular now as people want to know that what they eat isn't contaminated with chemicals and that they don't have to rely on the supermarket to survive. I think with cloud stuff (gaming, computing, ai, etc) the pendulum will swing back to owning physical media and your own stuff.

Yeah... a movement... more like a little hype just like the foodies, the fitgirls and all those other Twitter & Instagram heroes. There is no semblance of anything that really sticks or is even remotely functional with any kind of normal day job. Teenage dreaming, captured on video, are we going to seriously consider that 'a movement' now?

In Amsterdam a bunch of students tried to re-enact a complete process to get to a ham/cheese sandwich:

http://cityfarmer.info/amsterdam-an...-one-thing-a-grilled-ham-and-cheese-sandwich/

Didn't really prove to be feasible. It does underline the desire for people to be independant. But let's get independant where it matters, not where it is grossly inefficient. One size doesn't fit all, I think, in this regard.

So, move out of the lowlands (can't grow on flooded lands) and deserts (lack of water is a serious obstacle to growing anything) to be closer to the food sources. Large scale farming can be suicide, have you read "The Grapes of Wrath". Dust bowls do happen.

Food goes in and s*** comes out. We rent food.
The fee is cancer, salmonella, e coli, MRSA and all kinds of food recalls.
Next on the playlist: Waterworld

It is funny you should say this, I live in a country that is below the sea level for the most part - and originally most of the land is agrarian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands
'Netherlands' literally means 'lower countries', referring to its low land and flat geography, with only about 50% of its land exceeding 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) above sea level.[16]

 

[Bill_Bright]

I read a news article on a local portal saying it will replace computers. You look forward to that? What will be the point of this community and site when that time comes?

PCs no longer existing in 2 years is not going to happen. Where's this article?

And besides, xCloud is service, not hardware! No service is going to make computers go away. You still need network access to get the data. You still need local computing power to make and use the requested data. You still need something to view the data on. You still need HIDs (human interface devices) to manipulate the data.

Cell phones and other hand held devices may eventually lead to the demise of the PC, but not any service.

As for me, my computer will go away when they pry my full sized keyboard, mouse, two 24 inch monitors and my surround sound speakers from my cold, dead hands!

 

[jsfitz54]

As for me, my computer will go away when they pry my full sized keyboard, mouse, two 24 inch monitors and my surround sound speakers from my cold, dead hands!

Bill, no worries... you can take it with you... for a small... one time .... service.... fee.

Now that's what I call ownership.

 

[Sebastian-san]

Right you are, Jim. And what's the need for bathrooms in your house? You can just use the public restroom, for a small fee.

Oh! Sorry, my mistake, people usually have one bathroom in a house. I keep forgetting that beacause I never leave my room.

 

[jsfitz54]

Right you are, Jim. And what's the need for bathrooms in your house? You can just use the public restroom, for a small fee.

(Oh! Sorry, my mistake, people usually have one bathroom in a house. I keep forgetting that beacause I never leave my room.)

Hey, you've never seen my duplex outhouse! I have the top floor. The doors are marked: Smart Ass and Dumb Ass.

 

[Sebastian-san]

Hey, you've never seen my duplex outhouse! I have the top floor. The doors are marked: Smart Ass and Dumb Ass.

No I have never seen that. My house just has two bathrooms. The second is on the third floor and connects to my room. Sorry I'm not talking about a flat.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Bill, no worries... you can take it with you... for a small... one time .... service.... fee.

Except my body will be donated to science with whatever is leftover to be cremated. Oh well.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Yeah... a movement... more like a little hype just like the foodies, the fitgirls and all those other Twitter & Instagram heroes. There is no semblance of anything that really sticks or is even remotely functional with any kind of normal day job. Teenage dreaming, captured on video, are we going to seriously consider that 'a movement' now?

In Amsterdam a bunch of students tried to re-enact a complete process to get to a ham/cheese sandwich:

http://cityfarmer.info/amsterdam-an...-one-thing-a-grilled-ham-and-cheese-sandwich/

Didn't really prove to be feasible. It does underline the desire for people to be independant. But let's get independant where it matters, not where it is grossly inefficient. One size doesn't fit all, I think, in this regard.

Different things matter to different people. Some people want to be closer to the earth while others are excited by the clouds. Pun intended. When I read a news story about the largest software company on earth building a cloud gaming platform I am validated in feeling like we are moving closer to a renters society (at least in the west) and farther from an ownership society. LIke all technology there will be a push and a pull. There will be growing pains. There will be a come to Jesus moment. You can be scared of it or embrace it. There really isn't a right or wrong way to feel. Just be open to how other people feel and be willing to change your mind as your experiences construct your world view.

 

[StrayKAT]

I'll repeat what I said again in the other xCloud thread (why are there two?): It sucks to see MS using the very same thing Sun and Oracle tried to beat them with back in the Network Computer/Java days.

The Cloud is like a symbol of our Cucked society. The PC is for the individual. For better or worse, it's amazing power in your fingertips. Political, creative, technical, what have you. Doesn't matter. End it, and you'll regret it.

Also, I should point out that computers mostly STARTED as time sharing systems. But it was the PERSONAL computer that created a revolution.

 

[notb]

Owning means being able to do with it what you want, when you want it, to most people.

Isn't that exactly what I've said?
Being able to do what you want means having full rights, not having physical control.

After that principle, we thought about all sorts of laws to protect or limit that ownership.

No. We created the laws for copyright etc, because the goods changed. 1000 years ago your most prized possession was a golden necklace, a horse, a building. Today, for most companies and many individuals, it's the intellectual property.

You're mixing up cause and effect here. Law changes, but the principle of ownership really does not. That is why, for example, we tend to vouch for publishers to make a game or its code open source after they stop its servers - its that fundamental clash between law that has become obsolete and the principle of ownership. And guess what: ownership tends to win because its common sense.

You know that something being open-source doesn't mean it's free, right?

The cause of cloud services: demand for easy, cheap access to gaming. That demand is not universal among all gamers, but rather a tiny niche, such as yourself.

I think you're making a mistake here (much like @Sebastian-san). You think about cloud gaming as something perfect for low-quality, cheap gaming - perfect for phones etc. And it is that. But it also provides a way for high-end, heavy-computation gaming without owning expensive hardware. And potentially, it gets you even further - beyond what a PC can do.

But since cloud gaming is a mystery, let's talk about cloud computing in general (it'll all transfer to games, you'll see).
What you've said is one side of the coin - cheap access to basic stuff: like editing simple documents, playing music, sorting news etc. Cloud is perfect for that - an equivalent of a single cheap PC can serve hundreds of people instead of one.

The other side of coin is the performance aspect.
I do a lot of numerical computation and started using cloud maybe a year ago.
If a problem is sequential (single-threaded), my i5-7500 isn't far from the fastest CPUs available - 8700K is 20% faster, which is irrelevant.
For parallel problems I could buy an 8-core Ryzen or a HEDT CPU which would be 5-10 times faster than my PC. Great.
Problem is, I don't do such computations all the time. Sometimes it's few days a week, sometimes few days a month.
So instead of buying an expensive PC, I rent 10 "Ryzens" at once and do the calculations in 2 hours, which costs me around $10.

The companies investing in cloud gaming assume a similar thing can be done with games. You won't have to buy a powerful PC. You'll just need a powerful service for the time you're actually playing.

An owner can game without internet.

True most of the time (not for Diablo 3, for example).
But the real question is: does he game without internet? Do you?
Of course PC gaming is still strongly single-player, but most best-selling games on phones and consoles have a very pronounced cooperation component (guilds, achievements, duels, comparisons etc).

As for that technology curve, that's just your rather limited perception of things. In fact, in terms of security and privacy that technology curve is getting corrected, now and in the future.

No, it won't. It's just a mistake most people make.

You think your data is more secure kept at home than on a server.
For exactly the same reason people have thought cars are safer than planes - even after decades of superior casualty statistics.
Today people are afraid of autonomous cars even though - even at this early stage - safety statistics are in favor of AI.
People tend to prefer the solution they are used to or they think they understand. This will never change.

 

[StrayKAT]

It even sucks for PC/high computational gaming. Unless you're someone who never mods or create things for their games. Or does something to interface with them from a third party... something that requires actual access to game files in one way or another.

edit: In which case, you may as well be another console peasant and leave.