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Xbox Cloud Streaming Won't Replace Consoles, Microsoft Says

Lunatic_Gamer

Gold Member
xcloud_art.0.jpg


Pav Bhardwaj, senior global product manager for Xbox Game Pass, said in an interview that consoles will continue to play a role in the equation. "Some people are always going to love playing on consoles, having a console in their living room to download and have that experience," Bhardwaj told GI.biz. "I love consoles--[streaming] is just another route, another option to open up gaming to other people."

Bhardwaj went on to say, "It's not that one is a detriment to the other, this is more of a rising tide, and it's a really good place to be in to offer all these different opportunities. There's still PC, and there'll be new form factors that come out in future."

Overall, Bhardwaj said cloud gaming will be a "great alternative" to consoles, not a replacement for them.

"There are different reasons why people don't buy dedicated hardware: affordability, accessibility, maybe they're lapsed gamers or already own devices for other platforms. We really think this is about accessibility and choice," Bhardwaj said.


 

Lokaum D+

Member
Noob quest about xbox consoles, just bought a xss and 80% of the time that i hit home button to return to home screen the console freezes/Black screen for a moment, is this normal ? On ps5 this is so smooth
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Ms was never going to buy 50 million of their own Xbox just to offer $10 a month streaming subs. That’s tens of billions in revenue they would be losing.

Gaming requires hardware far more expensive than streaming movies and TV shows.
 
Yeah and horse armor was just a one time thing
It would have been if there wasn't a demand for it. The market dictates what direction things go. The best you can do is vote with your wallet but don't be too surprised when not everyone sees things the same way as you do.

Right now for a lot of people $500 (closer to $700 here) is way too much to plunk down at once and having the option to stream to a device they already have is at least an option even if it's not as good as playing directly off hardware. I'd take laggy cloud-delivered Xbox games over the shit that's on mobile devices any day.

That's not normal, when you hit the guide button you get a bar sweep in from the left and then hit home, it's instant on my Series consoles.

Even my shitty old VCR-style Xbone does that instantly, definitely something not right there.
 

M1987

Member
Noob quest about xbox consoles, just bought a xss and 80% of the time that i hit home button to return to home screen the console freezes/Black screen for a moment, is this normal ? On ps5 this is so smooth
No it's not normal. It never did that when I had a series s, and it doesn't do it on my x.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Why would MS even want to go all "streaming-only" after this generation? It makes literally zero sense.

IKR. The market dictates the products that get sold and MS is selling consoles as fast as ever. I'd imagine those are still their most profitable customers also.

The idea of them not wanting to design consoles after they made the decision to launch two of them when they could have just done one, that's always been funny to me.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
Just because they're not jumping the gun now or in the foreseeable future doesn't mean that it isn't inevitable.

Wishful thinking as they are limited by the speed of light in best case scenario. But hey, there might be servers around every house corner in the future.
 

yugoluke

Member
Yea most level headed people knew this from the start.

People always assume that everything is a zero sum game, especially the gaming community. As if allocating money to anything other than single player AAA games is heresy and is contributing directly the the downfall of the medium.

For a space that is so reliant on technical expertise and innovation it is crazy to see so many people actively campaign against innovative new directions the industry may branch out into.

It is in everyones best interest for the gaming audience to grow.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Wishful thinking as they are limited by the speed of light in best case scenario. But hey, there might be servers around every house corner in the future.

The internet backbone will largely transition to LEO Sats as time goes on, should turn cases of 150-200ms to 6-10ms tops. Even with latency issues being a lot less prevalent, local will always be faster.
 

Roni

Gold Member
That is the correct statement for the time being, but making the customer pay forever through rent is more profitable than selling a product once.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
The internet backbone will largely transition to LEO Sats as time goes on, should turn cases of 150-200ms to 6-10ms tops. Even with latency issues being a lot less prevalent, local will always be faster.
150-200ms to 6-10 is never happening.

If you are playing a game via Lan you get a 5-20ms ping.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
That is the correct statement for the time being, but making the customer pay forever through rent is more profitable than selling a product once.

Pretty much.

Cloud isn't replacing consoles this generation, maybe even not the next. But it's happening sooner or later.
 

Justin9mm

Member
Most countries around the world would need to have a much evolved infrastructure where accessing data is as simple and instant as turning on a light switch with no distinguishable lag, no such thing as data limits and speed is not even mentioned because of how instant it is. This is when cloud streaming could take over. If that is even ever possible, we are many many many years from this technology.
 
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ManaByte

Gold Member
Most countries around the world would need to have a much evolved infrastructure where accessing data is as simple and instant as turning on a light switch with no distinguishable lag, no such thing as data limits and speed is not even mentioned because of how instant it is. This is when cloud streaming could take over.
maxresdefault.jpg
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
It isn't a matter of "replacing" local hardware in any sense. A market expanding doesn't mean it consumes existing markets.

I'm using replaced in the same sense the executive used it, but if we're talking about Cloud augmenting the current hardware, it does a pretty bang up job of it as it is.

Eventually, maybe in the next 2~3 console cycles, we may very well come to a point where console-harwdare will become obsolete, when the cloud experience becomes indistinguishable in terms of latency and quality.
 

Topher

Gold Member
I'm using replaced in the same sense the executive used it, but if we're talking about Cloud augmenting the current hardware, it does a pretty bang up job of it as it is.

Eventually, maybe in the next 2~3 console cycles, we may very well come to a point where console-harwdare will become obsolete, when the cloud experience becomes indistinguishable in terms of latency and quality.

No, you're not. Bhardwaj made no mention "this generation" or future generations.

"Overall, Bhardwaj said cloud gaming will be a "great alternative" to consoles, not a replacement for them."
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
No, you're not. Bhardwaj made no mention "this generation" or future generations.

"Overall, Bhardwaj said cloud gaming will be a "great alternative" to consoles, not a replacement for them."

-_-

I literally said I also don't see it replacing console hardware for another generation or two at least. The executive isn't commenting on MS's plans 10~ years in the future but with their focus on cloud, more so than any other major console manufacturer at least, their road map about it seems pretty clear unless they make complete U turns in the next couple of years.
 

Topher

Gold Member
-_-

I literally said I also don't see it replacing console hardware for another generation or two at least. The executive isn't commenting on MS's plans 10~ years in the future but with their focus on cloud, more so than any other major console manufacturer at least, their road map about it seems pretty clear unless they make complete U turns in the next couple of years.

-_-

Bhardwaj made a flat statement without the qualifiers you've applied. That's all.
 

sainraja

Member
I mean, that is what they are going to say right now. I don't expect any of their communication to change until the technology is at a point like movies or music, when they know people don't really care, that's when streaming will become the norm for gaming. Unlike movies/music, games are bigger and are only getting bigger, so there is a chance that the download option could go away completely. I think, at-least right now anyway, that they will eventually get people to move towards streaming completely. Now, something else could come along the way that changes the landscape completely so streaming never makes it to that point. All that remains to be seen!
 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
When even the biggest platform holders are saying that "yeah it will never replace local gaming" it makes you wonder if any of the outrage over cloud is justified
Xbox is the only one going all into cloud gaming (and even then, it's hardly taking priority over their gamepass stuff). Playstation's pretty much just using it as a side gig as opposed to their exclusivity deals and first party stuff, Nintendo & Valve don't even know what the fuck a cloud is (besides the thing you use to keep your saves with you everywhere you go)
Sure, big tech like google, amazon and walmart are into it but those companies will never survive in the gaming space, not when it's already crowded by 4 major prolific companies
 

DaGwaphics

Member
150-200ms to 6-10 is never happening.

If you are playing a game via Lan you get a 5-20ms ping.

That sounds like a router problem you are talking about (20ms is really bad over a local network). I've seen 6-10 listed as a goal for future satellite internet, the current offerings certainly don't offer anything close to that. I'll see if I can find the article where I saw it. It's probably a bullshot, sure. But even 25-30ms would be good for global communication.
 
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Why would MS even want to go all "streaming-only" after this generation? It makes literally zero sense.
When streaming becomes instantaneous it will happen. Makes sense. Probably won't be for a while but the box is going to go away at some point. you see us still using boxes at all in 15-30 years?
 
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