Xbox Series S/X: Thread 05

[MartyG]

Steam/Epic - Where it's all digital but cloud effectively doesn't exist and isn't likely to, also has little bearing on the console market

NVIDIA GeForce Now streaming, which is tied to Steam accounts, has been growing massively passing 20 million membership recently with NVIDIA needing to pause sign-up so that it can provision more hardware in its data centers - and just like with physical copies of things disappearing to digital, this trend will continue.

[fishbowlhead]

NVIDIA GeForce Now streaming, which is tied to Steam accounts, has been growing massively passing 20 million membership recently with NVIDIA needing to pause sign-up so that it can provision more hardware in its data centers - and just like with physical copies of things disappearing to digital, this trend will continue.

Sorry but cloud just isn’t on the winning side for gaming, it may end up taking over a lot of other digital spaces but for gaming it just doesn’t, and will never cut the mustard for experience.

[Lebowski]

Streaming is hamstrung by three major problems, Input lag, Your own connection, and the availability of servers to stream games to you. Even with Xbox cloud I often get placed into a queue or have the game stutter and break up at points, sometimes it never recovers and you have to restart the stream (This is on a gigabyte connection)

The only time i would use cloud on Xbox is too complete some weekly task for points, so I didn't have to download some 60gb ice hockey game that I'm never gonna play again for the 20 minutes of play it took to get some weekly Xbox points.

Like everything, I think AI could sort out the problems with latency (that's the thing that gonna solve all our problems isnt it that or put us all out of work and subservent to robot overlords)

would you like AI assist on to reduce input lag? id imagine it being like a less intrusive version of the driving aids you get in racing games that makes you belives your playing like a god.

[nonny]

That's why it will be big news regardless. They could have addressed the matter at last weeks podcast when the speculation was already 4 days old and at fever pitch, the format chosen would have made it easy to do so but instead they held off all this time to talk about it whilst the brand burned. That they're so behind the curve on this shows that even though planning will have been going on for a while now, they won't have been going on for too long a period.

But that's why I don't feel that this can be a nothingburger moment even if the intention of the podcast is to pitch that.

If Xbox consoles continue and act as the best access point for their games and Game Pass, but later on the games eventually make their way to other formats starting with some lower key titles.... that's still a watershed industry moment because no-one wants Xbox with permanent exclusives, they sure has hell won't want one with temporary ones meaning the countdown to a two platform console market begins.

That's already happened though... in terms of watershed moments Ori, Minecraft, Cuphead etc were already on switch or multi platform to begin with... likewise we've seen games like As Dusk Falls hit mobile as well as Xbox and now coming to PS5.

This isn't new territory as exclusivity from Xbox owned studios hasn't been a blanket rule for years now... What is different is the rumour mill discussing new titles and whether we're going to see a shift of rules.

I don't think it's as dramatic as others are making out. I'm certainly not losing any sleep over it... But Xbox certainly has to come out and set the record straight now.

[nonny]

Streaming is hamstrung by three major problems, Input lag, Your own connection, and the availability of servers to stream games to you. Even with Xbox cloud I often get placed into a queue or have the game stutter and break up at points, sometimes it never recovers and you have to restart the stream (This is on a gigabyte connection)

The only time i would use cloud on Xbox is too complete some weekly task for points, so I didn't have to download some 60gb ice hockey game that I'm never gonna play again for the 20 minutes of play it took to get some weekly Xbox points.

Like everything, I think AI could sort out the problems with latency (that's the thing that gonna solve all our problems isnt it that or put us all out of work and subservent to robot overlords)

would you like AI assist on to reduce input lag? id imagine it being like a less intrusive version of the driving aids you get in racing games that makes you belives your playing like a god.

This one is weird where Xbox is concerned. I understand Geforce NOW is the gold standard where streaming is concerned but Xbox seem to have reduced its appetite for it over the last year and it's telling that the service is still classed as being in beta.

They've added very little improvements to it and the queuing is most likely from a reduction in servers than anything else as it used to be almost instantaneous to access.

More than that it tops out as t 1080p and the are zero options to configure bandwidth for the best results.

The outlier news to this though is I understand the native Xbox streaming on Samsung TV's has much better latency than native on the console... plus we know from the leaks that the new controllers they're planning to release this year have direct internet connection, much like Stadia, for lower input latency.

Who knows where Xbox will take the service next, but clearly there is more that can be done to improve it... if they see it as a worthwhile venture.

[Neon Ignition]

The thing with the other games MS have launched on other formats is that they were in of themselves not big news. With Minecraft it would have been big news to remove it from being on other platforms whilst Ori, for all its fans love it, is like when MS allowed Rare to still make GBA games. At any of the points where these small projects eeked out onto other systems the news cycles would have ground to a halt if Forza, Gears, Halo etc had done so as well. It's a natural arc for MS to lean into but will definitely hold huge sway over the viability of the console itself.


For MS's Cloud ventures, I can imagine they'll continue to invest heavily into it but I'm expecting it to increasinly step back from that investment being on the gaming side of the tech.

[nonny]

I don't think we will see Forza or Gears on other platforms but I could see them putting Halo Infinite multiplayer on PlayStation simply because it's free to play...

Whether that is worth it is the question as it would be banking on micro transactions from the wider community and honestly who knows if PlayStation owners are even interested in Halo?

[Wools]

Stop playing AAA games.

There's been a whole week of demos in Steam Next Fest up until yesterday (and is a regular thing). Aside from a load of Vampire Survivor clones, there is loads of character - the indie space has never been so alive with different creative ideas; people just need to shift their focus a bit.

I think the only AAA games I’ve played recently are Nintendo & GT7. Aside from that, I can’t remember the last AAA game I’ve played.

Although the indie scene has character, my point above being that all AAA games on console and PC used to be unique in flavour to the platform they are exclusive on, which helped define a PC or consoles output. That doesn’t exist anymore; AAA games on PC are multiplatform and AAA games on console are story driven. The era of AAA exclusives are almost over, AAA games are more dull and if you want the uniqueness, it’s provided by smaller developers and indies.

My point above being, if Microsoft went multiplatform, I genuinely don’t think don’t think most people would recognise the shift, as their games might as well be a multiplatform release.

[Neon Ignition]

I don't think we will see Forza or Gears on other platforms but I could see them putting Halo Infinite multiplayer on PlayStation simply because it's free to play...

Whether that is worth it is the question as it would be banking on micro transactions from the wider community and honestly who knows if PlayStation owners are even interested in Halo?

I mean, that's what would be interesting about Thursday. As much as Halo is a major Xbox exclusive franchise the porting of the multiplayer of a three year old game would likely result in a shoulder shrug, It's part of the trouble behind the idea of ported titles being low on drama, why allow so much damage and need so much time to clarify things?

Plus the main question they have to answer - Ports might help Xbox Divisions earnings, but how would that help ailing Xbox S/X sales when you're further removing the requirement to buy one? The issue here being that as soon as the response dovetails into MS's focus on widening how and where gamers can access their games the realities of R&Ding, manufacturing and marketing consoles doesn't stack up, especially when you're already on a sharp sales decline in that area whilst you still have all the incentives to buy one in your arsenal.

[QualityChimp]

I hope if they go the streaming route it's more successful than Google Stadia, OnLive, Amazon Luna and Nvidea GameStream.

[Neon Ignition]

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[Lebowski]

I hope if they go the streaming route it's more successful than Google Stadia, OnLive, Amazon Luna and Nvidea GameStream.

Gone but not forgotten a graveyard of failed platforms, I remember the Google Stadia wars like it was yesterday The sound byte was

If Google can't make streaming work with the money and tech they have access too then nobody can"

ooops

[MartyG]

If you think this is how it will always be with improving network protocols for latency, increasing CDN deployments, increasing consumer hardware costs, and a low barrier to entry, combined with a shifting to consumer acceptance who prefer convenience over quality - then you're not paying attention to technology and market shifts.

[dataDave]

It’d be funny AF if all they talked about was their new Smash Bros. clone, and a bunch of new controller designs to go with it.

[Brad]

I wish we had another term for AAA games/studios. Most of them haven't made a AAA game for years and it's insulting to smaller studios who are making much better games. Let's call them Designed By Management, Incomplete, Micro transaction Games instead (or something catchier)