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Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#31

Post by shmerl »

skohan wrote: post #30
shmerl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, competition is good. But it doesn't mean it should come with lock-in problems. MS learned not to mess things up on the Web (remember ActiveX and Silverlight?). But when it comes to gaming, they are still as nasty as in the '90s. And Sony is even worse in this regard. I agree about Stadia in general. I wouldn't want it to become too dominant, especially since it's like DRM on steroids - you can't back up anythin…

I suppose if Google starts kicking their butts in cloud gaming, they might loosen their stances on lock-in technologies in an effort to attract developers.

That's what I hope for. MS stopped being lock-in jerks on the Web only when they practically lost the browser wars. They need a stronger kick in gaming too, to start using cross platform technologies.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#32

Post by chronogram »

shmerl wrote: post #18

Google finally advances Linux+Vulkan gaming using a side door that bypasses the market share blocker altogether. MS and Sony don't like it and plan to mirror Google. Instead, they should stop being lock-in jerks, and should support Vulkan as well.

How is that Google streaming gaming thing not Google being "lock-in jerks" then?

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#34

Post by shmerl »

deafcalculus wrote: post #28
shmerl wrote: post #18

Google finally advances Linux+Vulkan gaming using a side door that bypasses the market share blocker altogether. MS and Sony don't like it and plan to mirror Google. Instead, they should stop being lock-in jerks, and should support Vulkan as well.

The graphics API isn't that big a deal anymore. It's often a pretty small part of the engine codebase. Many games, especially those built on the popular engines like Unity, support both DirectX and Vulkan (and Sony's API too).

It is a lot bigger deal than you think, including for those very engine developers who work on Unity and etc. Having to deal with all extra lock-in APIs doesn't come for free. It takes time, resources and slows down releasing features to their users.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#35

Post by shmerl »

chronogram wrote: post #32
shmerl wrote: post #18

Google finally advances Linux+Vulkan gaming using a side door that bypasses the market share blocker altogether. MS and Sony don't like it and plan to mirror Google. Instead, they should stop being lock-in jerks, and should support Vulkan as well.

How is that Google streaming gaming thing not Google being "lock-in jerks" then?

In their context, lock-in could happen if they'll start pushing exclusives. But in technology sense, they are advancing common stack (Linux / Vulkan), unlike MS and Sony who use tools lock-in to discourage platform development by making it more costly.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#36

Post by chronogram »

deafcalculus wrote: post #28
shmerl wrote: post #18

Google finally advances Linux+Vulkan gaming using a side door that bypasses the market share blocker altogether. MS and Sony don't like it and plan to mirror Google. Instead, they should stop being lock-in jerks, and should support Vulkan as well.

The graphics API isn't that big a deal anymore. It's often a pretty small part of the engine codebase. Many games, especially those built on the popular engines like Unity, support both DirectX and Vulkan (and Sony's API too).

And OpenGL and Metal, and even the web! With a sweeping generalisation I'm going to say that a games company is either too small to care about the graphics API, or too big to care.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#37

Post by tzakrajs »

skohan wrote: post #22
tzakrajs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stadia has overcome the speed of light, so yes it's a viable product now and needs a response. /s

There might be cases where Stadia will be too high-latency for some games/gamers, but I would wager it will make huge inroads in the untapped market of people who want to play games but can't or won't invest in gaming hardware.

Let’s revisit this in a year.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#38

Post by phjesusthatguy3 »

MS is contributing Azure resources, Sony is providing the camera sensors, and they're both working on AI. So they're collaborating on enhancing the panopticon and going to charge people to train it.

I wish I was kidding, but it's right there in the press release minimaxir linked[0]

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19931405

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#39

Post by skohan »

chronogram wrote: post #32
shmerl wrote: post #18

Google finally advances Linux+Vulkan gaming using a side door that bypasses the market share blocker altogether. MS and Sony don't like it and plan to mirror Google. Instead, they should stop being lock-in jerks, and should support Vulkan as well.

How is that Google streaming gaming thing not Google being "lock-in jerks" then?

Presumably if Google makes game development for Linux commercially viable, that will make for much more vibrant community support (tooling etc.) for local Linux as well. That plus what Valve is doing with Proton could potentially break the stranglehold Windows has on PC gaming. I personally would go 100% linux on my media PC if I did not occasionally play games on Windows.

Re: Sony and Microsoft set rivalry aside for cloud gaming alliance

#40

Post by zdw »

shmerl wrote: post #18

Google finally advances Linux+Vulkan gaming using a side door that bypasses the market share blocker altogether. MS and Sony don't like it and plan to mirror Google. Instead, they should stop being lock-in jerks, and should support Vulkan as well.

AMD is the big winner here, being behind the MS and Sony consoles for the last (and likely future) console generations and the Google Stadia service.

And with their GPU's going into datacenters and a move away from CUDA lock-in to OpenCL (example: https://www.openwall.com/lists/announce/2019/05/14/1 ), they're in a great position to increase market share of GPU accelerated tasks like AI and deep learning.

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