Jonathan Blow: Microsoft's Cloud/Server Claims Are Lies

[Steven Bogos]

Jonathan Blow: Microsoft's Cloud/Server Claims Are Lies

Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid, calls "BS" on claims cloud processing will improve the physics and lighting of Xbox One games.

Earlier this month, Microsoft claimed that it would have 300,000 Xbox servers up and running by the end of the year. It also claimed that the cloud processing technology being employed by the Xbox One will actually improve various graphical aspects of its games [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124325-Microsoft-Claims-Cloud-Will-Quadruple-Power-of-Xbox-One]. Jonathan Blow, prominent indie developer most famous for quirky platformer Braid, has firmly called "BS" on both of these claims.

Microsoft's claim of 300,000 servers by the end of the year was meant to stun consumers and investors, but Blow is not so easily swayed. "I can spin up 10,000 virtual servers per host. They would just all suck," said the developer over Twitter, calling out Microsoft for "Saying 300k when they are virtual is a lie."

He didn't stop there, tweeting that the supposed physics and lighting improvements from cloud processing is "More cloud processing BS." While he doesn't have the technical know-how himself to call Microsoft out on it, he urges for "Someone [to] please call their bluff on this."

Braid was initially an Xbox 360 exclusive that eventually made it over to PC and PS3. Blow is a particularly vocal personality, and complained numerous times that Microsoft's poor policies are what have made him defer over to Sony, developing his upcoming game, The Witness, as PS4 exclusive.

I'm guessing Microsoft's PR guys are wishing that they didn't treat Mr. Blow so badly back when he was still developing for its platform. Blow's prominence in the indie dev scene is sure to make several major players sit up and listen, and should only serve to worsen the PR disaster following Microsoft's Xbox One reveal event.

Source: Action Trip [https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/statuses/338192621858091008]

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[Kargathia]

So, essentially we have somebody calling out MS on being rather economical with the truth in a PR reveal, but doesn't have any evidence, or even tech knowledge to back it up.

It's like a dick measuring contest, but then with bullshit.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Don't we hate this guy for some reason? Should we listen to him?

 

[Hazzard]

I think he's the man who said "Explosions are shit" in the PS4 abridged announcement.

 

[shintakie10]

So, essentially we have somebody calling out MS on being rather economical with the truth in a PR reveal, but doesn't have any evidence, or even tech knowledge to back it up.

It's like a dick measuring contest, but then with bullshit.

This sounds about right. I'm all for makin fun of Microsoft for their absolutely shit ideas so far for the Xbone, but lets stick with the facts for now. If what they said is false, then someone who actually knows what the fuck they're talkin about can call them out on it. Someone who outright admits that he's just talkin shit and hopes someone who actually is in the know backs him up just makes him look dumb.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well he is right even if accidentally, cloud computing means fuck all for anything in realtime... which would be the game part.

 

[The White Hunter]

I'm iskc of them throwing the term cloud around, it's just a way of preying on ignorance. The "Cloud|" is anything past your closed local network. It's a server, it stores and exchanges data, it's highly unlikely Microsoft will have any kind of actual processing power available on them.

Seriously, I'm no fan of Jonothan Blow and his lack of evidence is unsettling, but he's probably not wrong, even if he doesn't know why.

It's hardly improbable for microsoft to lie, I mean they had guys from IW come up and say things like highr es textures for dogs are next gen, and that fish moving is complex AI:

Sure they could have banks of those fancy Radeon streaming cards AMD were showing off a while back, but that means fuck all if your connection has a blip, and isn't terribly usefulw ithout a complex and dedicated streaming services. Playing a game off your local system and having the processing on both sides would be an insane thing to undertake with relatively fresh technology, it will bite them in the ass if too many people try to play at once.

Edit: Assuming this does actually work it would in all likelyhood devour your bandwidth and render your connection unusable at the same time for anyone you share it with. I can't speak for everyone but I live with other people and they all use the internet, this would not go down well.

 

[The White Hunter]

Don't we hate this guy for some reason? Should we listen to him?

If I recall correctly we dislike him because he's a bit of a pretentious wanker.

 

[Oskuro]

The guy's point is that people shouldn't blindly accept marketing buzzwords, and I can't help but support that stance.

It'd be nice to have this lead to a more in depth debate about what the Cloud can actually do, so all the [male bovine excrement] related to it (For example, how the cloud was supposed to make Sim City better) can be properly debunked.


Also, Blow might be a pretentious dickhead, but he has, at least, delivered on his promises so far (Braid), unlike many other pretentious dickheads out there.

 

[VladG]

Of course MS's whole "cloud computing will improve graphics quality" is bullshit. Similar to how EA claimed SimCity offloaded a bunch of calculations to the cloud, which was proven to be complete and utter shit.

 

[Jandau]

What I want to know is how exactly would cloud computing help? If I'm correct, it would mean that some of the calculations would be done server-side, right? OK, I can see the idea behind this, but doesn't this mean that you would need a constant, stable, high speed connection to play any game that used that feature?

Also, can anyone point me to a successful example of cloud computing? The first two that come to mind are SimCity (lol!) and OnLive (lol?), and that doesn't really instill confidence. But even if this is the best cloud computing incarnation in gaming ever, it would still mean the console would need a constant internet connection to play games.

So, the console doesn't have to be constantly online, only needs to check in once every 24 hours, but fuck you if you want to play something?

 

[kailus13]

So, essentially we have somebody calling out MS on being rather economical with the truth in a PR reveal, but doesn't have any evidence, or even tech knowledge to back it up.

It's like a dick measuring contest, but then with bullshit.

Isn't he admitting he doesn't have evidence, and asking for someone with evidence to speak up? All he's saying is that he thinks it's most likely bullshit. Just like the rest of the internet.

 

[IronMit]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-spec-analysis-xbox-one

This article is an analysis of the consoles and their development cycles.

Long story short it paints how Xbox made a weaker console and realised at the ps4 conference. It was too late to change and so they made up this cloud-server gimmick. It makes sense when you read it - they thought the PS4 would have only 4GB of ram so they were happily making and 8gb console that used 3gb for OS. They revolved the architecture around that esram chip to aid the DDR3 RAM. Hence they couldn't change anything after PS4's reveal.

 

[AlwaysPractical]

We already found out cloud processing was bullshit when Maxis said it, so I'm highly inclined to agree with Blow here. Even if he is saying it out of spite against the company, we saw EA lying to our faces about it, so why shouldn't Microsoft?

 

[Daveman]

The "cloud" is bizarre. I remember going to a tech expo with my mum and about half the exhibits were just talking about the "cloud" in the least tangible means possible. I swear they didn't even know what it is. I was actually pleased because the Microsoft exhibit was one of the ones that WASN'T pulling all that bullshit. The industry is on the verge of wanking itself to death over it. It's obvious this guy's right, I mean he doesn't have any "evidence" but everyone should really know this.

 

[devotedsniper]

The guy actually brings up a good point, how many of those servers are there actually? I didn't think they'd be 300k actual boxes that's a huge maintenance cost not to mention the actual task of maintaining them. I'm very interested to know just how many boxes there are for these 300k or better yet how many servers are on the same box.

As for improving the graphics they could but it's getting that data to and from the clients which make this near enough an impossible task, if these claims of 3 extra xbox's per customer are true that's a hell of a lot of data to be sending back and forth even if it's just the finished calculations, not to mention what happens when your internet isn't working or hell what if it's just being throttled at that point in time? Will my graphics turn all pixelated and fuzzy just like they did the time i was trying out the OnLive Service or will a 1/4 of them still work fine? Obviously that last bit was more exaggeration than anything but there is a chance that the graphics could turn to mush if the internet is acting up. There also the option of what if I'm not online for whatever reason?

Either way these claims never live up to claim, look at SimCity, it actually works fine offline but the bits that do require online don't work properly even now, hell sometimes when I exit my city it still claims to have been unable to save to the cloud and it's still slow on the update of regions.

If the console can't live without a server carrying most of the weight then why did they even release the console, you might as well of released a box like the OnLive service did and call that your new console.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Don't we hate this guy for some reason? Should we listen to him?

I suspect it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Microsoft were very probably talking out of their arse. However, at the same time, it's hard for me to swallow Jo Blo's motivation for this trash-talking as being on the level when he's firmly in the grip of Sony.

 

[MorphingDragon]

So, essentially we have somebody calling out MS on being rather economical with the truth in a PR reveal, but doesn't have any evidence, or even tech knowledge to back it up.

If Microsoft was running this with 300K physical servers doing lighting and physics, it will still be bogged down by the time any popular game utilizing was released for the Xbone. Let alone latency. I agree with Blow in the sense that this is mostly a marketing department rolling their heads around on a keyboard.

The claim is rubbish even with the most basic knowledge of computer architecture. Most lighting and even physics now is done on shaders on the GPU. Are we just going to do it in software on server or shared GPU(s), with internet latency and doing it on most likely conventional x86 hardware? This claim is fucking retarded, its quicker to just do a second rendering pass than it is to send all the information over the internet let alone the scheduling overhead then to do the bloody computation.

Why aren't people discussing the actual hardware advantages of the Xbone? Because the marketers want you to know about the retarded shit they came up with rather than what the engineers put thought and effort into.