linuxplatform

CloudTalkin said:

sflocal said:

genovelle said:

canukstorm said:

InspiredCode said:

I agree with Microsoft on this, but Apple (if they say anything) will probably argue they are not a general purpose platform and instead compare themselves to the Xbox store. I really wish Apple would see iOS as the post-PC platform for everything.

When you have 1.7 million apps on your platform, you don't get the pleasure or the privilege of saying you're not a general purpose platform.  If they did, that would be a BS argument.  MS is the only competitor that has the size and economic clout to go after Apple on this and I'm glad that they're raising the issue regarding Apple's dogmatic handling of the App Store.

Apple is on point here. If you want to play on our platform play by our rules. I may be wrong, but I’m sure Microsoft is not letting Sony games stream to Xbox. Microsoft can’t be trusted. Why would they undermine their own development platform? If game developers were wooed to this and stopped developing for iOS directly, it would make us dependent on Microsoft like we were for the first Macintosh. Then when Microsoft looses interest like the tend to do, the platform would suffer. 

Exactly.  Microsoft is being a hypocrite when one realizes Microsoft is (arguably) even more stringent about the Xbox Live store.  

That's provably wrong.

You are 100% correct here. Right now, XBox does horribly in Japan, China and South Korea. Were Sony to come to them and say "hey, we want to do a JRPG subscription service on XBox, how much do we have to pay for access?" Microsoft would respond "you don't have to pay us ... we'll pay you!" in a heartbeat. And as I stated earlier, EA offers a subscription gaming service on XBox anyway. So these people are just flat wrong. They are showing that they really don't know anything about the tech world beyond Apple products. As usual.

All of you guys are wrong. Let me count the ways.

1. Quit it with the Microsoft conspiracy theories. Apple also doesn't allow Nvidia GeForce Now or Google Stadia either.

2. Microsoft does allow the competing EA Access video game streaming service on XBox. So comments like "Microsoft is (arguably) even more stringent about the Xbox Live store." ARE FALSE.

3. Even if they didn't ... so what? XBox is not a general purpose computing platform. Where are the people running Microsoft Office or Visual Studio on their XBoxes? They have two purposes: video games and home entertainment.

4. Undermining their own platforms? Don't you realize that xCloud means that no one has to buy their lightweight gaming consoles like the XBox One Slim? Or has to buy the cheap (meaning less than $750) 1080p gaming PCs? Also, thanks to Stadia, there is officially no longer a reason to put anything but a free-with-ads or free-to-play-with-IAPs games on Android anymore. And this is despite Google also offering Apple Arcade clone Google Play Pass! Finally, xCloud, Stadia and GeForce Now are (primarily) for AAA PC and console titles, not the mobile titles that go to iPhones, iPads and even Apple TVs. 

I have said it in the past. Apple is a hardware company. Their goal is to convince you that you not only want but actually need (for quality, reliability, privacy and security) Apple's hardware. Google from the beginning and now Microsoft under Nadella are software companies. Their goal is to convince you that you should invest your money and time consuming the best services and it doesn't matter what hardware you access those services from. That's why even Google's hardware efforts - Pixel phones, Chromebooks, Chromecasts - are meant to utilize and show off Google's cloud services. Google is only relaunching the Android TV concept that they basically forgot about - except as a platform for smart TVs - as primarily Chromecast and Stadia devices. (Unlike Apple Arcade and Apple TV, Google is not doing squat with Google Play Pass on Android TV.)

Microsoft's statement is not meant to pressure or turn up the heat on Apple. Instead, it is about Microsoft's own customers. Microsoft knows that tons of their XBox - and Steam - gaming clientele owns iPhones and iPads. (Android fans tend more towards PlayStation. Why? Simple. Apple dominates profits and mindshare in the US but Android dominates overseas. XBox, similarly, is very big in North America and to a lesser extent western Europe but PlayStation is huge everywhere else.) So their goal is to let all of their iPhone/iPad XBox fans know that Apple is the reason for XBox not being on their mobile platform of choice and not them. The natural instinct is to do what a lot of you guys are doing: blame Microsoft with false claims that if Microsoft really wanted to make it work they could have and their being on Android and not iOS is evidence of some nefarious agenda. Microsoft is letting them know that A) there is nothing that they could do to get xCloud on iOS and iOS is the only general purpose computing platform that doesn't allow services like xCloud. And they are 100% true.

You can agree with Apple's stance all you want. I myself am perfectly fine with it. Were Android devices as expensive as iOS ones it would be a bit harder to swallow, but since you can get an Android device capable of playing xCloud, GeForce Now and Stadia for as little as $100 (and as little as $60 if you are willing to side load Google apps on an Amazon Fire tablet!) then I can't really care. Join the 3 billion+ perfectly satisifed Android customers in getting a cheap Android device solely for this service. You can even recycle your existing XBox account as your Android account, so none of this "Google is going to steal invade my privacy, track me and steal my data!" nonsense. And stay safe inside your private, secure Apple walled garden for everything else.

Beats said:

Oh Microsoft wanted the entire App to be streamed? WTF. Yeah, that's sketchy as heck.

I still wonder how they had test flght working. They may have had a full app running on iPhones/iPads, then decided to pull it and think they'd get special treatment. If this is the case then Microsoft are just playing chicken with Apple to see who will move first. (Spoiler: Microsoft will).

Once again, it isn't sketchy at all. There have been companies working on streaming games for years. Most of them were small who went out of business. Sony investigated it for years too but decided that they didn't have the resources or skills in cloud computing to pull it off. That leaves Nvidia, Google and Microsoft. Each one is playing to their own strengths. For instance Nvidia has a lot of expertise in virtualization so their solution is based on that, and they partnered with Amazon to handle the cloud stuff.

Once again, quit it with the special treatment and playing chicken. This is a video game streaming service, and one where Microsoft already has 2 large competitors. Soon they will have 3 big competitors as Amazon will launch their game streaming service in 2021. Inevitably, the legacy console gaming companies Sony and Nintendo will have to figure out a way to get a product out. (Remember ... Nintendo was adamant about never, ever releasing mobile versions of their video games because the tiny screens were a bad experience ... then the Wii U happened. Now several Nintendo titles are on mobile, and their new "console" is actually an Nvidia Shield K1 tablet with a 6.2" screen and a dock.)

Microsoft isn't going to abandon video game streaming in order to accommodate Apple's hardware-based strategy. Especially since they know that - unlike Google and Nvidia - the success of xCloud is going to come at least partially at the expense of their own XBox hardware. And no, Google, Nvidia and Amazon - who don't have consoles or even Apple TVs with Apple Arcade really - to compete with cloud streaming to begin with aren't going to agree to Apple's terms either. 

And not just Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Video game companies that used to have consoles but don't any longer like Sega? Video game companies that never had consoles like EA and Ubisoft? (Google hired former Ubisoft execs, and are getting a number of Ubisoft games as a result). Video game companies who have embraced a cloud-centric gaming model from the beginning like Epic and Fortnite? (Fortnite mocked Stadia but is very much available on GeForce Now and will be on xCloud at some point.) And Steam? They have been working towards streaming their games from the cloud for years. 

So no, Microsoft isn't going to blink and neither is everyone else with a vested interest in selling you games without forcing you to buy a $500 console or $5000 gaming rig first.

razorpit said:

Does Sony get a pass because the games are being played on a device that is owned by the user? The PS Remote Play is not perfect, but definitely serviceable.

Yes and that is why Apple (eventually and reluctantly) allowed Steam Link too.

Rayz2016 said:

Beats said:

Microsoft thought they would get special treatment. They'll come along eventually. Android users hate paying for things and most knockoff devices have terrible quality screens and crap performance(Yes AI smart asses, I KNOW this is cloud computing, not the point).

Admittedly I missed this line before posting the above:
"App Store guidelines state that an app can't rely on streaming from the cloud."

What about video like Hulu?

The Hulu app isn’t streamed. The Hulu content is. 

I’m with Apple here, but I’m not sure how this would work. We can’t have the game devs being charged once by Apple and then charged again by Microsoft. They’ll have to split the one charge between them. 

Good answer on the difference between streaming an app and streaming content through an app. However, it is still no dice. Microsoft would say that you are streaming a video game through the app just like you are streaming a movie through Netflix. Also, it isn't a payment issue at all. Microsoft has no problem paying 30% for Office 365 subscriptions, for example. The problem is that Apple requires all apps to be locally installed and run. 

Why? Because it is a hardware company that shows off their great hardware. Moving to PWAs and cloud-based streaming apps ... benefits cloud companies like Microsoft and Google as well as products like Android and ChromeOS as a platform, because you can use very cheap hardware to serve as UIs for the services that live in the cloud. That is why the launch configuration for Stadia was a $70 Chromecast and a Wi-Fi controller. And why you can play it on any device with a Chrome browser and you can use your existing USB gamepad. Apple wants to use services to make more money off their hardware. Things like Stadia and xCloud are designed to replace their hardware and that doesn't fit their business model. And yes, this explains why Apple executives have been running various FUD campaigns like: "you need our products FOR SECURITY AND PRIVACY", "with Apple we sell you products but WITH GOOGLE YOU ARE THE PRODUCT", and "kids who use Chromebooks in public school instead of iPads WILL FAIL IN LIFE."

Ironically Samsung is caught in the middle. They also need to showcase the importance of hardware so that people will buy their devices that cost 2-3 times as much as perfectly serviceable ones from Motorola, Nokia, TCL, Google etc. But they also need to partner with Microsoft and Google - who are at odds with that mission - in order to obtain the software and services that they can't develop on their own to make their devices viable alternatives to Apple devices. Earlier today I read an article that discussed how Microsoft worked with Samsung to make their Tab S devices capable alternatives to iPads for professionals by making sure that anything you can do with Office on an iPad Pro, you can do on a Galaxy Tab S (yes, Samsung sells their version of the Magic Keyboard, and theirs preceded the Apple version by several years). Thanks to that, Samsung tablets are the only ones worth buying for any reason other than streaming, reading and gaming (for which a $150 Amazon Fire HD 10 is all that is needed once you sideload the Google Play apps onto it). Google gives Samsung no real help on tablets because quite honestly they would rather you buy a Chromebook, but Google did put in a lot of work into getting the software right for Samsung's foldables. The problem is that Google's preference is for such devices to ultimately cost many hundress less, and will contribute to that effort by launching their own much cheaper foldable next year. 

Ultimately, Google and Microsoft are software companies. Microsoft is a traditional desktop and server computing software company that is increasingly moving to a cloud services model like Google and Amazon where Google has always been a cloud services model. This means that increasingly both of them are only going to be interested in getting people to their cloud services and they could care less what devices you use to get there. Maybe Microsoft less so because they still have a very vested interest in selling Microsoft Windows licenses and XBox hardware. But they know that in the future that side of their business is going to be of diminishing importance whereas the bulk of their future revenue is going to be xCloud, Office 365 and selling Azure services. That is why thinking that Microsoft wants to be isolated from the 2 billion iOS devices, you aren't thinking clearly. (Now macOS is another story ... they can do without that 7% market share, and having to support their xCloud app on both Intel and ARM for macOS would just be another bother.) And no, they won't give in to Apple's terms - and neither will Google or Nvidia - because even if it is possible it doesn't fit their future ambitions.

Nvidia too? Aren't they a hardware company? Well yes, but Nvidia wants to get more of their hardware into cloud data centers. Right now they are trying to convince that industry to offload some of the data center workloads onto GPUs ... which Nvidia makes. Also, Nvidia wants to get into making CPUs for data centers too ... hence their desire to purchase ARM. So whether it is cloud hardware like Nvidia or cloud software like Microsoft and Google, these companies have too much riding on their own business models to worry about helping Apple with theirs.