Gaming from the Cloud

This is a two-fold entry of sorts seeing as it will be about two different topics. Why you ask? My answer to you is that these topics of conversation these days do no merit posts of their own.

The first topic of the day is the comments recently made by Aaron Greenburg on the size increase of your Xbox LIVE Friends list. He said, “It’s definitely something we’re looking at expanding and, as this social network grows, we’ve absolutely heard the pleas for that. It’s on the list. (Via Platform Nation)” While I personally do not need this increase I have heard it talked about for the past two or so years. I know that it was a common request when the updates to the console were released biannually and I think that if they could finally figure out a way to do party chat then they could figure out a way to bump up that friends list cap (which currently stands at one-hundred).

Now I personally do not care about this feature upgrade because I am constantly weeding out people whom I’ve added but never have played with beyond that one initial time (the time that you liked playing with that person enough so you added them but now they are never on at the same time anymore). There are definitely mainstays on my friends list but until I blow up in the blogosphere I am betting that I will not care about the size of my friends list. How about you? Do you need the friends list increase?


The second and more interesting topic on hand is this. From the floor of CES there are talks about gaming from the cloud. Let me first explain what this could mean. This could mean that one could play a game with the highest of specs from say an iPhone or a crappy PC. I have not fully wrapped my head around this but I think that this is long off. Please click the link above for a better description.

This topic has me thinking (through a completely rationale thought process) about a “one console” future and it is a little unnerving. We need the “big three” to keep competing so that we can have all of these innovations (Avatars, Mii's, Home, etc). I like being a 360 Fanboy and Fanboyism will be threatened if there are no specs required to run a game. Every system will be able to run that game. It will be MADNESS! Okay enough of that, I have worked myself into a tizzy. I am just thinking worst case scenario and I would be willing to bet that the big three will be around for years to come. Thoughts?


Again that is all the rambling I have for you so return back soon for more of my clever and witty diatribe.