BTW, slightly offtopic: Kinect-users (there are some, aren't there?), does Kinect recognize whose voice give commands? I mean last thing I would ever want during heated match is my kid or wife (or potential parrot) to storm in the room shouting "XBOX STOP!" or something.
PS: Just imagined possibilities of trolling: stop by some campus and, using amplified speakers: "XBOX Start! Format harddrive! Yes! Yes! Yes!" :)
@spectreSE7EN Maybe I wasn't clear: if I use FRIEND'S console to play my game I MUST login to my account (to play freely). Is it possible at all if this console:
- not connected to internet?
- connected to internet, but doesn't have membership plan active?
Ok, some explanation required, since I've never touched xbox before: when they say "play at your friend after you logged in" - does that mean that said friend must have some kind of subscription plan active or just internet connection is ok? I was under impression that xbox won't connect to internet unless you're subscriber.
I sincerely hope for that to be true, because WiiU isn't able to compete with PS4, and we both know what happens when there's no competition, right, Sony?
@Ducez_III @sieg6529 13 years ago 1Gbit ethernet card was introduced. Now there are mentions of 10Gbit cards, but we're nowhere near of making it standard. Most of the infrastructures are built on 100Mbit networks, introduced in 1995.
@jinzo9988 Ok, let me rephrase it just for you... if you come to the display close enough you'll see the little dots. They are called 'pixels'. And there're about 2 mln of these bastards on modern TVs. And every one of them can show a lot (about 17 mln, 32bit worth of switches) of different colors, and change that color about 50 (usually more) times per second. Now, something should tell these little pixels what they should show. And they don't care about if it's cloud or PC or God Almighty - they just need their 32bit of data. 60 times per second. Every last one of them, damned pixels. Double it for 3D picture, because some of us have two eyes, you know.
So now, the bus (it's just another smart word for cable) that connects cloud/PC/console/God/whatever to the screen should be able to transmit the data in question. And if bus can't handle the amount - picture won't be good enough. Dedicated multimedia cables (read "HDMI") can do that. Network cables can't, at least without compression and other "cheating" technologies.
With some of the next-get-gaikai preachers here, let's just put it to the simple math:
Current gaming consoles are able to put out (hopefully) FullHD 3D at 60 fps.
1920*1080*32*60*2 = 7 962 624 000 bits per second ~= 7.4 gigabits of raw data in a second (and HDMI can handle that).
Assuming we're using lossless compression algorithms, sometimes network will be required to handle that load. Otherwise we'll either have lags or compression artifacts.
Now, let's take a look at UHDTV... I think it'll be safe to assume that's what's going to be good gaming resolution in 10 years.
7680*4320*32*60*2 = 127 401 984 000 bits per second ~= 120 gigabits of raw data in a second.
Now, as far as I heard, currently the fastest consumer ethernet cards out there can pull 10 gigabits per second (correct me if I'm wrong). That's not very inspiring, since 1 gigabit cards appeared in 1999, more than 10 years ago. Fiber optic record is 111 gigabits per second (and it's doubtful it'll go higher), wireless isn't worth mentioning (closing in on 1 gigabit).
So, in my humble opinion, assuming console manufacturers play their hand right, no way they disappear in the next 10 years due to streaming services competition.
Oh, and I totally forgot about sound. 7.1 for current gen, 22.1 for UHDTV. :)
"64kb ought to be enough for everyone" all over again.
It'll take way MORE than 10 years to ensure good connection for everyone. Get your american head out of the sand and take a trip to Brazil or Russia or China, David.
I also highly doubt that by the time connection is good enough to stream fullhd everywhere, games won't move to some crazy-ass super-extra-ultimate quality-with-3D, killing the idea behind streaming games once again.
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