'Energizing Times': Microsoft To 'Go Big' at E3 in Response To Google Stadia (arstechnica.com)

Microsoft announced its Xcloud game-streaming service last August, with the ambition of streaming console-quality games to gamers wherever they are. Yesterday, Google made its foray into the space with the announcement of Stadia. Google promises that Stadia will be "coming [in] 2019," potentially stealing a march on Xcloud, which is due only to enter public trials this year. But in an internal email sent to rally the troops, Phil Spencer, Microsoft's gaming chief, seemed unsurprised and apparently unconcerned. He wrote: We just wrapped up watching the Google announcement of Stadia as team here at GDC. Their announcement is validation of the path we embarked on two years ago.. Today we saw a big tech competitor enter the gaming market, and frame the necessary ingredients for success as Content, Community and Cloud. There were no big surprises in their announcement although I was impressed by their leveraging of YouTube, the use of Google Assistant and the new WiFi controller.

But I want get back to us, there has been really good work to get us to the position where we are poised to compete for 2 billion gamers across the planet. Google went big today and we have a couple of months until E3 when we will go big. We have to stay agile and continue to build with our customer at the center. We have the content, community, cloud team and strategy, and as I've been saying for a while, it's all about execution. This is even more true today. Energizing times.

Comments

I can summarize Stadio in one word:

[Locke2005]

Lag!

Re:I can summarize Stadio in one word:

[walllaby]

I'll give it a chance. Let's see what they've come up with! Who knows, maybe they discovered the Pied Piper of buffering.

Carmack disagrees

[SuperKendall]

Lag is not so much an issue that game streaming is not viable. Just ask John Carmack.

Re:Carmack disagrees

[Locke2005]

It sort of depends on the type of game. 100ms roundtrip time makes drawing with a mouse unbearable, would probably be frustrating for trying to aim in first person shooters -- but would probably be par for the course for telepresence applications, which is what this new architecture is really good for. It completely decouples input and output; I'm pretty sure having a microphone in the controller means having rumble in the controller isn't an option. It won't work with a mouse, probably won't work with a touchscreen; we just need to wait for them to write applications that it's actually good for, and accept the fact that it's only for people with fiber internet connections.

Going to need

[AHuxley]

some actual bandwidth for all the new streaming services?
Got some extra new innovative new telco to go with that streaming service?
Something to stream on that's faster than paper insulated wireline?
Computers will have 6K and 8K displays. The CPU and GPU will be ready.
The Windows OS has the CPU, GPU, network code support.
Time to make a new series of tubes to actually get the data to users?
Push 5K streaming out over 5G?

Yeah this isn't going to work

[JMZero]

I thought this sounded cool until I read some comments, and it turns out:

1. This was tried 10 years ago and it didn't succeed
2. When players perform actions in these games, there will be a delay before the server can process that action and return corresponding output. If this delay is too long, the experience will suffer.

It just shows how out of touch these companies are that neither of them considered these big red flags.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[AHuxley]

But today we have an advanced Windows OS.
Powerful new GPU and CPU hardware.
Lots of RAM.
5K and 8K displays are ready.
The user side is set for some new games.
The streaming side is ready in the US. Content and the computers to stream from.

The series of paper insulated wireline between the new content and the users computer is the series of tubes that is holding back US game innovation.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[Duckeenie]

Lag doesn't appear to be as much of an issue as people are saying: https://wccftech.com/google-st...

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[JMZero]

You bring up some very interesting points - but just as many questions.

Like, sure my home computer has a powerful gaming GPU - but is it really powerful enough to stream video?

Will I have enough RAM to stream video? Is my Windows OS advanced enough?

We live in a world of uncertainty.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[DontBeAMoran]

The sarcasm is strong with this one.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[AHuxley]

Early games expected networks like that found on an advanced networked campus and then had dial up support.
People now have faster networks. 1000/1000 services for users can be found globally.
Powerful gaming GPU support is going to be ready. Thats the raison d'etre of any great GPU brand :)
Windows OS has been game supportive for users and developers for many years now.

Games will be ready as really smart and creative people can do that design work.
Find a great ISP with no caps and faster network speeds.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[rtb61]

Ain't it weird, the more powerful and cheaper computers become, the more effort they put into taking them away from us and consolidating all that power in their server rooms, controlling what you hear, what you say, what you see and what you do, their control and their power. Dickbag cunts like M$ even try to force that control and power over your computing platform in your home, what a pack of cunts. Trying to look all cool with gaming, what a pack of anal retentive douche bag control freaks.

More computing power cheaper and yet the entire industry wants to take it away from the people and control all inside their server farms, pretty much data slave farms, your data, they own it and control it.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[AHuxley]

Lets see what they can do on the existing series of tubes to the user over distances.
It could open up great demand for new ISP services with no data caps.

Not so great playing the new MS game all weekend and not having any ISP data for next day.
MS needs people paying for new games and playing advanced new games.
Then telling everyone about how great MS is and how much fun their new server games are.

That good news for MS will not spread with any ISP that totally slows the users network mid way into a new MS game.

Fun new games need fast ISP and the data limits to enjoy them.
Community broadband and a selection of really great new ISP could be the plus side to MS needing better ISP products to sell games.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[drinkypoo]

1. This was tried 10 years ago and it didn't succeed

So what? It's not 10 years ago any more.

2. When players perform actions in these games, there will be a delay before the server can process that action and return corresponding output. If this delay is too long, the experience will suffer.

You had to read an article to find out about lag? Are you new?

It's only going to work for a subset of users, but that's why google is the ideal provider. AFAIK Google is still the best-distributed service around short of perhaps Netflix, and all Netflix has got is some wimpy little per-ISP CDN boxes. Google has bits of cluster all over the place. Lots of that cluster is doing not very much a lot of the time. They're in the best position to provide the lowest-latency service. And since they have the hardware just sitting around doing less than it should, any profit they can make is a win.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[mrfaithful]

1. This was tried 10 years ago and it didn't succeed

So what? It's not 10 years ago any more.

But what's changed though? Have connections got faster? We've certainly got more throughput, but that's not the issue. I have the same ping time between me and LINX as I did in 2001. The only thing they can do differently from Onlive is 1) offer a netflix model and 2) use the might of the google advertising machine. From a technical standpoint nothing has changed.

And rumour has it that they aren't using a netflix model so all they've got is advertising.

Microsoft are working on a way to reduce perceived lag by rollback. This relies on the game having enough input lag by design that you can "hide" the network lag in this by running ahead, then rolling back and rerunning the game logic when you find out that your prediction was wrong. But that's not a magic bullet as it only cuts out one half of the latency and it increases costs at the datacentre as it needs to render ahead and re-render.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[Hodr]

Yes, every armchair network engineer or wannabe professional twitch streamer has shared their "expertise" on the issue and compared it to 10 year old OnLive service that had two regional data-centers for the entire US.

Meanwhile, pretty much everyone who tried the open beta (myself included) had a good experience.

On my 25mbit connection I was getting very good results, with occasional (maybe once per hour or two) hiccups when my AC would kick on which causes momentary issues with my wifi.

On my connection I was getting 12-17ms ping to their servers, I don't know how long it took them to encode the video but realizing that it is a constant bitrate hardware based encoding it is likely very little. You can buy commercial H.264 1080P60 encoders that claim sub 10ms latency (I have used encoders from Antrica at my workplace that spec google (half my ping time, so 8ms) + "interpreting commands" (0 since its the same if played local) + encode time (10ms) + return trip time (8ms) = 26ms.

If you think 26ms of additional lag,vs playing on a local machine is "unplayable", you are an idiot..

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[jjbenz]

I sure the hell wish I had 1000/1000 service available to me.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[drinkypoo]

But what's changed though? Have connections got faster?

For lots of people, yes. For other people, no. But even if it will only work for (let's just say) 20% of the population, that's a lot of potential customers.

The only thing they can do differently from Onlive is 1) offer a netflix model and 2) use the might of the google advertising machine. From a technical standpoint nothing has changed.

That might be enough anyway.

And rumour has it that they aren't using a netflix model so all they've got is advertising.

If they don't use the netflix model, I predict they will fail. But maybe they will, even if not right away.

Microsoft are working on a way to reduce perceived lag by rollback.

I guess they remember quakeworld. That was the last time you could get away with that kind of crap, when having lots of players in an internet game was still new, and we were using dialup modems.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[AHuxley]

Ask your ISP?
They are the only ISP and can't do that speed?
Request community broadband to support the services needed to enjoy a computer game as the "only" ISP cant support that speed.

Getting to be the "only" ISP comes with the idea that the network tech has to be kept fast.
Fail as the "only" ISP in keeping up with advances in network tech and its time for some real ISP competition.
For a ISP to become the only approved ISP they have to keep up with advances in tech.
Bring in another new ISP that can work with new really fast networks. Bring in community broadband when existing network tech gets too slow.
Put a lot of different ISP on new community broadband and see what they can do with speed and data caps.
Then enjoy some new computer games on a new computer.

Re:Yeah this isn't going to work

[walllaby]

Jesus Christ, you make it sound as if they already charged your credit card for one of these services. If you don't like the idea, just don't fucking buy it. Problem solved.

Sometimes it's more about providing a good service with a competitive edge. Who wouldn't like to play the latest games at the highest graphics settings without spending $3000 on a new PC? I certainly wouldn't mind. I already pay for Spotify and Netflix and those have provided me more value than problems.

Because data caps will destroy this service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like half the US has data caps on their ISP connections. That's going to prevent people from games at 1080p, let alone 4k.

Add in the problems of input lag and the whole service is a non-starter. Game streaming can work fine at short distances (within a house/building), but it's simply terrible for long distance.

Re:Because data caps will destroy this service.

[AHuxley]

Games that design around input lag can be created by skilled computer experts selected on merit.
All a matter of finding creative staff with skill, imagination, math and educational ability.
Games need to be fun and need to support the networks they will have to work on.
Put the network conditions in the new game design and see what really smart and very creative people can do.

The role of data caps will have to be worked around.
Find a ISP that can support not having data caps.
No ISP like that? Support new community broadband that can support no data caps.
The display, CPU, OS, GPU, RAM is ready.
All that is needed is a great ISP and new games design for streaming.
New games should not be a problem considering the number of artists and computer experts.

Let new ISP be innovative and the "series of tubes" will be ready too.

Two billion gamers?

[DontBeAMoran]

But I want get back to us, there has been really good work to get us to the position where we are poised to compete for 2 billion gamers across the planet.

This guy is dreaming. The total market for streamed gaming services is nowhere near 2 billion people.

The reasons are simple: internet connection speeds and monthly data caps.

I wish those tech companies would get out of their fucking california bubble and live like the rest of the world for a year.

Re:Two billion gamers?

[drinkypoo]

I wish those tech companies would get out of their fucking california bubble and live like the rest of the world for a year.

California bubble my ass. Most of California (by inhabited acre) has garbage internet options. Outside of the cities it's mostly hopeless, and even inside cities it's often very bad. Californians are very spread out, because most of the state has good weather, and because cities ban upwards expansion — which leads to sprawl.

That's actually two words

[DontBeAMoran]

La [buffering] g!

Re: That's actually two words

[DontBeAMoran]

Oh great, tonight I'm going to have nightmares again.
Thanks a lot.

OnLive take two or three or four...

[WaffleMonster]

So long as the trend line for GPU cost/performance continues to severely outpace trend line for last mile provision of bandwidth how can there be a future in any of this crap?

oh god, no...

[sad_]

we'll have Google, MS, Sony, some other company (maybe Valve?), all with game-streaming services to pick from.
guess what, it will be the same horrible situation we have now with video streaming.
some services will have game x, which is not available anywhere else, gaming company y will end it's contract with service z and from one day to the next all those games will be gone (oh, but they will be available from service w or you know, or own service because we want in on the action!).
you can also bet that all these streaming services will have their own studios only making games that will be available on their own service.

aaarch, nooo... stop it already.

Not in response to

[jgtg32a]

MS going big at E3 is in response to no one else being there, they were already going to go big.