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VentureBeat: Xbox hires Portal dev Kim Swift to make cloud games (like Kojima’s)


"Microsoft is getting serious again about cloud-native games. To that end, the company’s Xbox division announced today it has hired former Stadia game design director Kim Swift to oversee cloud gaming collaborations with independent studios. Those studios will include Hideo Kojima’s Kojima Productions if and when Microsoft closes that previously reported deal, according to our sources.

“Kim is going to build a team focused on new experiences in the cloud, something that’s going to support our mission of bringing our Xbox games to connect 3 billion gamers to play our games,” Xbox Game Studios publishing boss Peter Wyse said in an interview to Polygon.


Before Stadia, Swift was development lead on beloved Valve Software games Portal and Left 4 Dead. She will now use that expertise game/cloud expertise to help Xbox partners. Microsoft is making this move in part to specifically aid Kojima. That legendary developer was previously going to make a game with Stadia, but Google has backed away from games. The Metal Gear creator is now in the midst of negotiations with Xbox to produce that game. Kojima Productions is still in the early design phases for this project.
 

Chukhopops

Member
nehIZRM.jpg

So how many rumored or real projects is Kojima involved into this day?
 
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It’s kinda refreshing to see Kojima has finally grown out of his narcissistic tendencies because his fanbase is gonna have close to zero interest in a streaming only game.
 

elliot5

Member
It’s kinda refreshing to see Kojima has finally grown out of his narcissistic tendencies because his fanbase is gonna have close to zero interest in a streaming only game.
Nothing indicates this would be a streaming only game. Fight Sim is a cloud game and isn't locked to xCloud only.

All of Microsofts xCloud tech runs on Xbox hardware. It would make zero sense to lock it out of being playable on Xbox/PC. It just means using Azure to facilitate experiences in the game.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
I guess that I live in Western Europe now, because Flight Simulator which is cloud based game is working more than fine.
FS can be played offline. A great internet or server location is not needed.

This can’t. This is a native cloud game.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Any use of Cloud or Azure means outside of North America and Western Europe has almost zero support.

I’m part of those so consider myself not interested.
That's not true. xCloud works here fine. I am almost at the same location as the `other guy`
 

Spidey Fan

Banned
I am suprised people thinking cloud game, means only xcloud game. Flight simulator is a cloud game.
Here is a breakdown by r/crusader3456

"Flight Simulator uses the Azure Cloud for their robust full Earth map. Massive amounts of data. Overall their are quite a few application:

  • Large Scale game size that can't be installed on a single device.
  • Large scale machine learning from the overall player base to evolve the game. Could be multiplayer or single player. The cloud servers just learn from everyone playing and relay that data back to influence aspects of the game
  • Extremely robust AI. By offloading AI onto the cloud, one of the most CPU intensive parts of a game could be eliminated as a worry for the client (and become more robust via the last point).
  • Edit: to add an extremely simple one, dedicated multiplayer servers powered by Azure Playfab. This is nothing new, but forming Partnerships with Xbox could make it cheaper for devs to license these things."
 

Spidey Fan

Banned
So, all of that hype over a possible Hideo Kojima game for Xbox was about rescuing his Stadia game? I'm kind of relieved now, I won't miss out on anything interesting. :)
It could be metal gear reboot. there was a rumor xbox was trying to buy the IP. Though I dont trust it, the partnership with koji makes sense of that rumor. Still, take rumors with a grain of salt or be like this.
Feeling Silly Season 3 GIF by Living Single

Give me bloodborne pc port Sony.
 

01011001

Banned
So we're excited for Stadia-like services now?

noone says that this is a stadia like service game... Flight Simulator is a cloud based game, yet it runs locally on your PC/Xbox. the cloud based part is the world streaming.
the world map of Flight Sim is more than 2 Petabytes big. making it virtually impossible to run the game without the aid of the cloud. (unless you have 2-3 petabytes of storage on your PC...)

cloud services can do stuff like that... or advanced AI, massive playercount servers, online connectivity of world progress etc. technically Death Stranding is also a game that is in its essence reliant on the cloud as a core component of the game is working with others by building roads or setting up paths with ladders and rope etc. all of that is enabled by the cloud.

so a cloud based game does not mean it is streamed to you, it means it uses the cloud to do something you can not do locally, be it connect the world with the game worlds of others like Death Stranding does it, or have a massive data set like Flight Sim that it streams to your game... and it could be the AI stuff or massive player count I mentioned, or extremely realistic physics that a local CPU would not be able to compute... stuff like that. all of these things are stuff you can do with a cloud based game.
 
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Nothing indicates this would be a streaming only game. Fight Sim is a cloud game and isn't locked to xCloud only.

All of Microsofts xCloud tech runs on Xbox hardware. It would make zero sense to lock it out of being playable on Xbox/PC. It just means using Azure to facilitate experiences in the game.

Some people just want to assume the absolute worst, so you have to spell it out for them.
 
There's nothing wrong with Stadias technology and the potential of "cloud native" games is exciting it's just hard to fully manifest the potential.


Note: cloud native means leveraging the cloud not that it is only playable on cloud
Very wrong. Cloud NATIVE means only playable on the cloud. Youre talking about Cloud Enhanced like Crackdown 3.
 
I'll reserve judgement until we see more. I'm not excited about cloud only gaming but I will allow the fact that *some* unique experiences could be incredible with the right vision and execution. At least all the Stadia knowledge won't be thrown away. If MS hires Phil Harrison I will be upset though. He's sort of been the platform harbinger of doom.
 
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