Home Gaming Sony's cloud is better, or is it?

Sony's cloud is better, or is it?

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In another popularity garnering move, Sony announced that the PS4 will let you access your library while at a friend’s house.  Not only was this a feature that Microsoft removed during its 180, Sony is actually doing it better than Microsoft had planned.  With both companies raving about their clouds, whose is bigger and better?

First, we need to look at the uses of the cloud.  Such a buzz word, but what are we actually talking about?  So far, we’re mainly seeing talk about digital libraries and servers for processing multiplayer.

At the moment, Sony is winning the war of digital distribution.  They aren’t requiring it, nor is there an always-online aspect.  However, you can use it to play games when you visit other people, and it will download the pieces that you need so that you can start playing quickly, without needing to complete the download.  Impressive.  Microsoft had similar stuff, including family sharing of games.  Sounded pretty awesome.  Let’s hope that they bring it back at Gamescom – it’s time for them to actually go toe to toe with Sony.

Next, is the issue of multiplayer.  For those, like me, who don’t really know much about multiplayer, it’s normally hosted by one player.  This means that if that player has issues with their internet connection, everyone will experience lag and a crappy gameplay experience.  Alternatively, people can connect to a dedicated server, generally providing better connections and experiences.  However, dedicated servers are expensive – most developers can’t afford the server space, nor do they have the capacity to monitor them.  Microsoft has invested a ridiculous amount of money in the cloud, including a reported $700million in a new data center in Iowa.  This brings their total investment to about $1billion.  They will be using this to provide dedicated servers to all their multiplayer games, at no cost to the developers. I’ve gotta say, that’s a pretty impressive investment.  At this point, we just don’t know enough about how Sony will use Gaikai for their cloud services; the most we know is that there are upcoming plans for streaming games and Remote Play.  Somehow, I think if the investment were comparable, we would have heard something more about it.

In the end, it boils down to the core audience on each console.  For a while, I’ve been saying that Xbox is more for people who like multiplayer and shooters, while PS is for those who like RPGs and Action/Adventure titles.  There are plenty of cross-platform games that prove me wrong in this, yet the cloud focuses seem to corroborate my argument.  Microsoft is focusing on multiplayer, because that’s where their core audience lies.  Sony, on the other hand, is focusing on digital distribution and playing while at a friend’s house.  Maybe that’s just because PlayStation owners have more friends to play with, instead of just screaming obscenities online. 

Last Updated: July 12, 2013

56 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief Groot Wors

    July 12, 2013 at 14:14

    Trolololol indeed

    Reply

  2. Ultimo_Cleric N7

    July 12, 2013 at 14:17

    WiiU is better than both!
    lol

    Reply

  3. Umar Kiiroi Senk?

    July 12, 2013 at 14:19

    I think it’s time Sony eats a bit of humble pie …… Seems like they still throwing jabs at MS

    Reply

  4. HvR

    July 12, 2013 at 14:21

    Remember the MS Friend and family share (if they bring it back) is limited to 1 hour gameply; so it is like sharing a demo of your game.

    Since Sony is going to make PS+ compulsory for online play I suspect they will be supplying a similar server service than MS. And the reason they you didn’t hear about a big Sony spend on “cloud services” is than they spread their investment over some period of time to implement their current PS+ service.

    Also the NSA monitors your skydrive.

    Reply

    • DarthofZA

      July 12, 2013 at 14:22

      It wasn’t 1 hour of gameplay, it was if you haven’t been online for more than an hour it would stop working. Not at all like a demo.

      Reply

      • Umar Kiiroi Senk?

        July 12, 2013 at 14:24

        It was never announced as to how long it would last actually

        Reply

        • DarthofZA

          July 12, 2013 at 14:47

          They stated that you could share your games with other people in your family network. It was implied. If it was anything but the full version you were sharing it wouldn’t of been a “feature” as demos are easy to get without the need for your mate to share with you.

          Reply

          • Umar Kiiroi Senk?

            July 12, 2013 at 14:54

            No I mean the time, they never announced for how long, it was just rumors. I know you can share yes

          • DarthofZA

            July 12, 2013 at 15:09

            They did. When they specified that only one person could play the game at a time, they stated that if your console isn’t the owner console, and you went offline for more than an hour, you wouldn’t be able to play the game anymore.

          • Umar Kiiroi Senk?

            July 12, 2013 at 15:10

            Oh really? wow must have missed that , but how would that have worked if your One was always online.

          • DarthofZA

            July 12, 2013 at 15:15

            The plan was that on the host console, you could be offline for up to 24 hours before your gaming side would stop working. So you didn’t have to be always online. They then specified the sharing. So if I was playing your game because we were in the same family unit, and then my internet went down. I could play your game for another 1 hour. After that, I would have 23 more hours to play any games I had. After that, I would be screwed :P.

            That was the plan anyways.

          • Argentil

            July 12, 2013 at 15:21

            All of which was unnecessarily long-winded alternatives to just lending someone a game?

            Theoretically, you could use someone else’s PS4 to play a game you don’t own, but we don’t know the restrictions on that either.

          • Argentil

            July 12, 2013 at 15:11

            The ‘feature’ was snuffed in its infancy, before they could even formulate how they could make it viable. There would have been restrictions, but it was all in the inception phase, and was desperately thrown in as a countermeasure to soften the blow of always online and no used games.

  5. Trevor Davies

    July 12, 2013 at 14:28

    You make it sound like there’s something wrong with screaming obscenities online.

    Reply

    • John Ambitious

      July 12, 2013 at 14:40

      Don’t worry Mr Davies, the internet will always be there for that

      Reply

      • Trevor Davies

        July 12, 2013 at 14:47

        Or my car on the way to or from work. Every road user but me is so stupid! heh.

        Reply

        • John Ambitious

          July 12, 2013 at 14:58

          That sounds just about like my commuting.
          But you got one thing wrong. Everyone on the road but ME is stupid.
          Except if you don’t live in the Western Cape, then we can settle. I’ll take a province only.

          Reply

  6. Umar Kiiroi Senk?

    July 12, 2013 at 14:29

    20 things youdidnt know about PS4…well we know most of it, but it is confirmed now

    Reply

    • John Ambitious

      July 12, 2013 at 14:32

      Not regional is probably the best one

      Reply

      • Umar Kiiroi Senk?

        July 12, 2013 at 14:34

        It is so yummy, has a lot of other neat features too

        Reply

        • John Ambitious

          July 12, 2013 at 14:35

          It’s making me want one. The suspend thing is also quite cool

          Reply

          • Umar Kiiroi Senk?

            July 12, 2013 at 14:35

            indeed, how about a free PS 4 game every month too lol …. SO MUCH WIN!

          • John Ambitious

            July 12, 2013 at 14:39

            Gets me all excited

        • DarthofZA

          July 12, 2013 at 14:35

          I gave you a like. Awesome little video to watch sir.

          Reply

          • Umar Kiiroi Senk?

            July 12, 2013 at 14:36

            Why thank you kind sir

          • DarthofZA

            July 12, 2013 at 14:49

            Wow… a downvote on this comment? Can’t wait for the 10 year olds to go back to school (hate holidays) so that Lazygamer can at least get back to slightly normal.

          • Umar Kiiroi Senk?

            July 12, 2013 at 14:56

            Quite horrible to get a downvote for that 🙁

          • Argentil

            July 12, 2013 at 15:32

            Feed on the downvotes, haters gonna hate.

  7. DarthofZA

    July 12, 2013 at 14:29

    Header Image Win!

    Reply

  8. Admiral Chief Groot Wors

    July 12, 2013 at 14:34

    Heh, penor cloud

    Reply

  9. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    July 12, 2013 at 14:36

    The Cloud is a lie!

    Reply

  10. OVG

    July 12, 2013 at 14:36

    ??

    Reply

  11. Harvey P Cheesewinkle

    July 12, 2013 at 15:02

    Gaikai holds the world record for the largest cloud network. So, I’m guessing Sony wins there.

    Reply

    • DarthofZA

      July 12, 2013 at 15:12

      As far as I know, Virtelo is the biggest cloud network in the world. If you google for the largest cloud networks in the world, nothing about Gaikai even comes up. Stuff about how MS will be when they have finished putting up all their servers, but thats about it really.

      Reply

      • Argentil

        July 12, 2013 at 15:30

        Google and Amazon have the largest cloud networks afaik.
        It’s all so intangible, this cloud power. As wispy and ethereal as its namesake.
        I would really like some grounded answers and statistics for a change.

        Reply

        • Sageville

          July 12, 2013 at 15:33

          What about SETI@Home, they basically had distributed processing down, way before peeps invented the buzzword “cloud computing”

          Reply

          • Argentil

            July 12, 2013 at 15:35

            Cloud computing and cloud networking are classed as two separate systems.

          • Sageville

            July 12, 2013 at 15:48

            “Cloud networking” is just networking without “cloud computing”.

            Frankly “The Cloud” is alot of awesome with little application, more of just a technojargon buzzword to impress the average consumer.

          • Argentil

            July 12, 2013 at 15:51

            Cloud computing is infrastructure dedicated to computing needs. Cloud Networking is more online storage and server related.

            Or I dunno, cause the cloud does everything.

          • Sageville

            July 12, 2013 at 16:00

            Like I said, just buzzwords. Sadly only the 2 of us care.

          • Argentil

            July 12, 2013 at 22:49

            For true *nods*

        • Harvey P. Cheesewinkle

          July 12, 2013 at 16:16

          https://twitter.com/dperry/status/223557758178430978

          Not sure Google or Amazon have one of these

          Reply

      • Harvey P Cheesewinkle

        July 12, 2013 at 16:16

        • DarthofZA

          July 12, 2013 at 16:37

          As Harvey P said, they are in the most countries. As far as storage goes, I’m fairly certain Google has the most storage. They essentially copy most of the internet every 5 minutes. There are some videos they have put out showing what they do, and no gaming network will ever touch them in size. As far as raw processing power though, Virtelo has hundreds of thousands of virtual servers they farm out. i doubt Gaikai have a fraction of the raw processing power Virtelo has, and Virtelo might not even be the biggest.

          Reply

          • Harvey P Cheesewinkle

            July 12, 2013 at 17:17

            You’re probably right, I’d need to look into Virtelo. But, Gaikai’s no slouch either, they’ve been really pressing the technology end of their business to shave latency times down, last bulletin I could find said they’d upgraded all their servers with GTX 680’s and they’re working with Nvidia for the GeForce Grid technology*. So certainly for gaming purposes the power and performance is there. The question is, whether Microsoft or Sony can shave enough latency off for any of this to be applicable in gaming itself.

            That’s a pretty tall order, streaming a game at Xfps is one thing, assisting the game engine, physics engine or anything like that in a game is another thing entirely. You’d have latency when the game first sent the request to the server farm, farm does it’s thing, and latency on it’s way back. Just doesn’t seem likely, at least with today’s infrastructure..

            GeForce Grid: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-geforce-grid-cloud-performance

          • Argentil

            July 12, 2013 at 22:47

            Virtelo are what exactly? A google search yields weather results and a city in Portugal? What does this have to do with the price of eggs?

      • Harvey P Cheesewinkle

        July 12, 2013 at 16:26

        Guinness defines size through coverage, Gaikai currently has datacenters that cover 91 countries (88 at the time of the Guinness record).

        Reply

        • Argentil

          July 12, 2013 at 22:48

          Coverage is important. Wonder if they have anything in SA.

          Reply

          • Harvey P Cheesewinkle

            July 13, 2013 at 15:49

            No idea, unfortunately. I can’t see to locate any lists of the countries w/in their coverage umbrella. I’ll keep looking though.

  12. Anon A Mouse

    July 12, 2013 at 15:55

    Nice head….errrrr.

    Reply

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