Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 (E3)

[GoN_]

Also why is it PC mic and web cam can be hacked, you can be spied on because of that, oh I dont give a shit to worry about that is the typical worry.

Oh a video game console can spy on me now possibly? GRAB THE TORCHES AND PITCH FORKS!!!

Talk about hypocrisy at its finest.

I don't have my webcam turned on 24/7 and I know a lot of people that put a piece of paper over their laptop's webcam. You don't know how other people behave.

[Dan]

Also why is it PC mic and web cam can be hacked, you can be spied on because of that, oh I dont give a shit to worry about that is the typical worry.

Oh a video game console can spy on me now possibly? GRAB THE TORCHES AND PITCH FORKS!!!

Talk about hypocrisy at its finest.

Why are you getting so defensive? Do you work for MS?

He makes a fair point, people are taking some of the anti-Xbox stuff a little far.

And GoN knows people who put paper infront of a webcam? What the christ. What are they hiding?

[GoN_]

I have no idea, but some people are really protective of their privacy. I'm honestly too lazy for that kind of stuff.

[Dan]

Microsoft's engineers claim that the Xbox One will pack the power of ten Xbox 360s, but better yet, has access to a "limitless" amount of cloud-based processing power.

There's a big difference between the theory and practical applications, mind. Check out the quotes below.

"Microsoft has hundreds of thousands of servers and dozens of data centers geographically distributed all around the planet," Xbox One engineering manager Jeff Henshaw explained at an E3 panel [attended by GI.biz], "and Xbox One has the ability to instantly tap in to that limitless computational horsepower."

Using a tech demo from NASA as an example, which tracks asteroid positions in real time, Henshaw boasted that Xbox One can "take the number of asteroids from 40,000 to 330,000, and any device doing the computational math to realistically in real-time chart the orbital velocity of 330,000 asteroids would melt a hole in the ground, but Xbox One is able to do it without even breaking a sweat because it's pulling in virtualized cloud computing resources."

"Game developers are building games that have bigger levels than ever before. In fact, game developers can now create persistent worlds that encompass tens or hundreds of thousands of players without taxing any individual console, and those worlds that they built can be lusher and more vibrant than ever before because the cloud persists and is always there, always computing," Henshaw continued.

"Those worlds can live on in between game sessions. If one player drops out, that world will continue on and can experience the effects of time, like wear from weather damage, so that when a player comes back into the universe it's actually a slightly evolved place in the same way that our real world evolves a little bit from the time we go to sleep to the time we wake up. Game developers have given us incredibly positive feedback on the crazy different ways that they can use this incredible new cloud power resource."

The Xbox One's massive cloud-based server infrastructure will probably be useless for graphics processing, especially considering the rampant latency issues. That said, Henshaw has described a perfect platform for complex MMOs. As some of our readers have suggested, all this talk of cloud power could well be an attempt to compete with the more powerful PS4 on hardware terms - at least in theory.

See, that excites me. If it actually works it'd be the reason I would get an Xbox One in a couple of years.

I feel the PS4 is the better option for now and Xbox One is ahead of it's time with the potential of cloud computing.

[Colly]

Isn't that basically what Gaikai is supposed to do for PS4? To be honest its all just wacky names to me.

[Dan]

Gaikai is just streaming as far as I know and without the need for an almost always-on connection, cloud computing wouldn't work too well on the PS4.

[Draevyn]

A friend posted this on facebook this morning. My favourite so far.

http://www.dorkly.com/embed/52448/if-xbox-one-were-a-girl

[Summers]

Microsoft's engineers claim that the Xbox One will pack the power of ten Xbox 360s, but better yet, has access to a "limitless" amount of cloud-based processing power.

There's a big difference between the theory and practical applications, mind. Check out the quotes below.

"Microsoft has hundreds of thousands of servers and dozens of data centers geographically distributed all around the planet," Xbox One engineering manager Jeff Henshaw explained at an E3 panel [attended by GI.biz], "and Xbox One has the ability to instantly tap in to that limitless computational horsepower."

Using a tech demo from NASA as an example, which tracks asteroid positions in real time, Henshaw boasted that Xbox One can "take the number of asteroids from 40,000 to 330,000, and any device doing the computational math to realistically in real-time chart the orbital velocity of 330,000 asteroids would melt a hole in the ground, but Xbox One is able to do it without even breaking a sweat because it's pulling in virtualized cloud computing resources."

"Game developers are building games that have bigger levels than ever before. In fact, game developers can now create persistent worlds that encompass tens or hundreds of thousands of players without taxing any individual console, and those worlds that they built can be lusher and more vibrant than ever before because the cloud persists and is always there, always computing," Henshaw continued.

"Those worlds can live on in between game sessions. If one player drops out, that world will continue on and can experience the effects of time, like wear from weather damage, so that when a player comes back into the universe it's actually a slightly evolved place in the same way that our real world evolves a little bit from the time we go to sleep to the time we wake up. Game developers have given us incredibly positive feedback on the crazy different ways that they can use this incredible new cloud power resource."

The Xbox One's massive cloud-based server infrastructure will probably be useless for graphics processing, especially considering the rampant latency issues. That said, Henshaw has described a perfect platform for complex MMOs. As some of our readers have suggested, all this talk of cloud power could well be an attempt to compete with the more powerful PS4 on hardware terms - at least in theory.

See, that excites me. If it actually works it'd be the reason I would get an Xbox One in a couple of years.

I feel the PS4 is the better option for now and Xbox One is ahead of it's time with the potential of cloud computing.

Okay, that sounds amazing. That's some insane capability.

[gunnar hendershow]

I wonder how long it'll take for something to actually max out the capabilities there. A lot of technology has these mega-high ceilings that never get reached, hello PS3. So while it's really cool, I'd want to know it isn't all potential and is actually being realized before I spend money on it.

[apsham]

I'm heistant to believe or trust anything that's "in theory" especially when it comes to promises on consoles. Seems more of a "here's what CAN be done" than a "here's what WILL be done" in those regards.

[Dan]

The problem with the PS3 was it hard to make games for. Everything is pointing to the next gen to be much easier to develop on. The Xbox One would be a far better prospect in 3/4 years time and it feels like MS have tried to hold off releasing it for as long as possible.

The cloud has enormous potential but its nowhere near standard. The wise choices if going next gen is to get a PS4 first and wait a few years until the cloud becomes used in games on the X1. I do feel the PS4 will become dated a long time before the Xbox One though.

[GoN_]

On the subject:

PS4 developers will be able to offload some computing calculations to remote servers through the cloud, Sony’s worldwide studios president has said.

Much like the cloud capabilities that have been touted by Microsoft for the Xbox One, Shuhei Yoshida confirmed to Polygon that developers can offload certain processes usually handled by the hardware itself, such as AI and physics calculations.

He added however that, while many computations such as linking and matchmaking were already being done on the cloud side, there will limitations to what processes could be handled by the cloud due to latency and bandwidth.

Yoshida also said that, despite not requiring always-on functionality, he did not foresee there being an issue of adoption for cloud features by developers.

"We don't believe every title needs that,” said Yoshida.

"But if your title needs [an] online connection to provide some online features: Go for it."

During E3, Sony announced that its cloud streaming service Gaikai would start allowing the streaming of a select number of PS3 games on the PS4 from the start of 2014.

Sony forked out £380 million for Gaikai last year, with its cloud streaming tech set to eventually play an integral role in the future of the PS4.

[apsham]

I put down a preorder on the last PS4 at the EB Games in my city - woo! I'm still not sure if I want to get it on launch, but the options there and if I change my mind I can put the money on something else.. so yay!

And I knew the comment about the PS4 not being able to do cloud computing was bogus. Heck, when the PS3 launched it was doing the whole Folding thing... Sony is up on the tech.

[GoN_]

Why Ryse Is The Most Frustrating Game Of E3

“We don’t want the player to feel frustrated.” This is what I’m told. This is how it is explained.

Why then, I wonder to myself, do I feel so frustrated?

An enormous blistering historical epic, complete with sweeping string sections, stirring speeches, and arrows to the eyeball, Crytek’s Ryse was one of the surprise exclusives of Microsoft’s E3 conference.

It’s a game custom built to fit with the dead words we use to describe video games. Ryse is ‘cinematic’. Ryse is a ‘feast for the eyes’. Ryse is ‘accessible’. Ryse is ‘visceral’ — quite literally there is ‘viscera’. In reference to Ryse, mainstream media will write and/or say the words, ‘video games have come a long way since Pac-Man…’

Ryse is a technological beast and it’s all ‘real’. I have played the game, I have pushed the buttons that made the man do the thing, and I have buried the sword in the faces of the baddies. I can confirm that it is, in actual fact, a video game.

But Ryse is frustrating. Because Ryse won’t let me be frustrated.

In between superlatives regarding how good it all looked, one of the few complaints fluttering around the internet focused on Ryse’s ‘quicktime events’. Ryse is focused on providing a cinematic experience and, in video game land, ‘cinematic’ usually means slicing throats, opening bellies and stabbing foreheads in glorious/gratuitous slow motion. Hence the quicktime events.

But Crytek isn’t calling them quicktime events, it’s trying to avoid that term altogether. Crytek just wants every kill to look incredible, to look precise. It’s willing to go to strange lengths to make this happen.

Allow me to explain.

I’m on the battlefield. I’m stomping through the corpses of my comrades swinging my sword at anything that moves. I begin a combo, I slash twice and then whooom slow motion is initiated, shit is about to get ‘cinematic’. A button prompt hovers elusively above the sword I’m about to drive into the throat of my enemy… argh I’m too slow! The prompt flickers, disappears.

I missed it. Damn.

But then somehow, for some reason, I still complete the cinematic ‘kill’.

What?

Maybe it’s a bug I think, but no. Next time I deliberately press the wrong button. The kill goes ahead, no consequences. Then I try hitting no buttons whatsoever. The kill goes ahead. I put the controller on the table in front of me, the kill goes ahead.

What is going on here?

I ask one of the Crytek people hovering at the booth – is this a bug? Why am I completing kills when I hit the wrong button prompt? Or, worse, no button at all. Turns out it was a deliberate design choice.

“We don’t want the player to feel frustrated,” I am told.

Well it didn’t work. I didn’t work at all because I feel frustrated. I am frustrated because I am being denied the opportunity to be frustrated, denied the frustration that will motivate me to learn the game, to adapt.

Worse, I am being denied the visual feedback that informs me what I did correctly and what I did wrong, to the extent that the inputs I do make feel utterly meaningless. The buttons I am pushing do not control the avatar on screen and the disconnect is instantaneous. I am not in full control of what I do; I am not even partially in control.

Spare the rod, spoil the gamer. When there are minimal consequences to the inputs you make, the rewards you do receive feel empty. The idea behind this design decision, claims Crytek, is that players coming home from a hard day’s work don’t want to deal with the pressures and stress of playing perfectly. Instead of rewarding players with a gory cinematic for hitting the QTE correctly, players simply acquire a greater amount of XP or currency. But these are rewards that aren’t represented visually; the end result is that Ryse never feels fun to play.

It’s bewildering. Bewildering that a game would choose to move down this path; bewildering that Crytek believe completely removing any semblance of fair challenge would make players less frustrated; bewildering that they believe taking control from players would make them feel more engaged.

Edited June 14, 2013 by GoN_

[Ruki]

Stupid Ryse.

[gunnar hendershow]

Ryse looked like a game that would be really cool if you could do all the cool stuff in the game, but you can't.

[Cactus Drags]

That's very disappointing, that was one of the games I was most impressed with, I'd love to do the Roman soldier thing, and the shield formations and everything looked brilliant.

It was a couple of pages ago and I can't be bothered to hunt the post down to quote it, but someone mentioned that MS is going to lose money because of people who play offline. I'd wager the thinking is that online gamers make them far more money due to the willingness/capability to buy DLC, downloadable titles, horse armour, themes etc. I see it in my shop, I know there's no point offering season passes to certain people for example.

[LL!]

Why even have a button prompt then? Fuck Ryse.

[Colly]

That's very disappointing, that was one of the games I was most impressed with, I'd love to do the Roman soldier thing, and the shield formations and everything looked brilliant.

It was a couple of pages ago and I can't be bothered to hunt the post down to quote it, but someone mentioned that MS is going to lose money because of people who play offline. I'd wager the thinking is that online gamers make them far more money due to the willingness/capability to buy DLC, downloadable titles, horse armour, themes etc. I see it in my shop, I know there's no point offering season passes to certain people for example.

But surely the logic is that they currently make money off both those groups, and that cutting off one will mean them making less money? The 'offline' crowd isn't that small.

[Ruki]

Why even have a button prompt then? Fuck Ryse.

And I could see the 'super cool killing animation' getting boring after the first 20 minutes. If it happens every time you kill a person, and you'll kill a couple hundred enemies throughout the game...