Question about the cloud.

[davepesc]

I know I was trying to get something for nothing, but when the cloud storage became available, I thought I could ditch some old saves there and free up some memory space.

 

Unfortunately, activating the cloud storage option placed a 512MB file on my hard drive (the same as the available cloud storage)! Now I have less drive space than when I started. I thought the cloud was separate from our hard drives.

 

Why is this? Is it just to make sure we don't get anything for free?

[onlysublime]

I know I was trying to get something for nothing, but when the cloud storage became available, I thought I could ditch some old saves there and free up some memory space.

 

Unfortunately, activating the cloud storage option placed a 512MB file on my hard drive (the same as the available cloud storage)! Now I have less drive space than when I started. I thought the cloud was separate from our hard drives.

 

Why is this? Is it just to make sure we don't get anything for free?

 

the point of the cloud is 2 parts:

 

1) to protect your game save in case your hard drive or flash drive died

2) to have your game save in sync no matter what 360 you're playing it on. So I can play Rocksmith on the 360 in the family room and then continue the campaign on the 360 in the bedroom.

 

the reason to have the storage on the hard drive or flash drive is to protect your ability to be online or offline. If it was purely in the cloud, if your Internet connection got broken at any point during the game, your progress could be lost or your game save could get corrupted.

 

the way it's designed now, you move your game save to the cloud. now, it's copied back to your hard drive. then you play your game where it updates the game save on your hard drive. then at some point, when your Xbox is online, it'll sync up the version on your Xbox with the version in the cloud so that all versions are the same. this allows you to play your Xbox at any time regardless of whether you are online or not. While you are offline, you can advance your game career from level 1 to level 7. Then when you connect to Xbox Live, it'll upload that game save so that the cloud game save has you at level 7. All changes to your game save are first affecting the local copy of the game save. Then at some point, the game save that is local is uploaded to the cloud to keep everything in sync.

 

scenario: your 360 is hooked up and you play Gears of War 3 story campaign. You're in act 2. Your game save is in the cloud. You go on a ski trip this weekend to a cabin that doesn't have Internet. While you're not snowboarding, you want to continue your Gears of War 3. You go from act 2 to act 4, completely offline. You finish your ski trip and bring your 360 back home and reconnect it to the family room. It syncs up with the cloud. You continue gaming from act 4.

Edited January 13, 2012 by onlysublime

[Video]

Honestly, that sounds terribly inconvenient and really kind of idiotic. I mean, the cloud is basically internet. You don'thave internet, you don't have the cloud. I wouldn't bother with it, because our internet is down way to much....or works sporadically when it does work.

 

Really what they are wanting is to get people to rely on "the cloud" so they can stop making hdd and such, so you have to use this service, and once they have that, it will no longer be free.

 

I'll stay away personally, memory cards are fine, and I already have regular backups.

[onlysublime]

I think the setup they have is ideal for what I want. Not having to carry around my game save is great. Not worrying about whether or not my local copy gets corrupted is great. Not needing to make backups is great. Not requiring an internet connection is great.

[SoulBlazer]

I'm not sure I'm following you correctly -- I only have one 360 so I'm most interetsed in the cloud as a 'backup' for some critical saves for my HD.

 

So if I'm playing Skyrim, for example, and take a game save where I'm Level 50 and back it up on the cloud, and then keep playing the game and get to Level 52 before I quit, will my console automaticaly update and sync the game save on the cloud with the newest version? So that if, something happens to my HD, I can go to the cloud and download my save and have it at Level 52?

[onlysublime]

I'm not sure I'm following you correctly -- I only have one 360 so I'm most interetsed in the cloud as a 'backup' for some critical saves for my HD.

 

So if I'm playing Skyrim, for example, and take a game save where I'm Level 50 and back it up on the cloud, and then keep playing the game and get to Level 52 before I quit, will my console automaticaly update and sync the game save on the cloud with the newest version? So that if, something happens to my HD, I can go to the cloud and download my save and have it at Level 52?

 

If I'm understanding your run-on sentence correctly, yes, your game save in the cloud would be at level 52. And yes, if you threw away your hard drive and replaced it with another hard drive or flash drive, you would enable cloud storage on the new storage device and then run the game so that it redownloads the game save.

 

I don't have Skyrim but I heard the game saves for that game are huge. So you'll be taking a big chunk of your cloud storage for one game. But what you would do is enable cloud storage for game saves. Then you would move your Skyrim game save from your hard drive to cloud storage via the move function under the storage section of settings. It will then upload your game save to the cloud (basically it will first move it to the dedicated portion on your hard drive and then upload it to the cloud from there). Then when you run Skyrim and choose your storage device, you would select cloud storage instead of your hard drive or flash drive. It will then compare and download (if necessary) the save game from the cloud so that your local copy matches the cloud copy.

 

Now with cloud storage already enabled, if you get a new game, when you run it for the first time and choose cloud storage as your storage device, everything is done and handled.

[SoulBlazer]

Thanks for the answer. How do I turn on the cloud saving again?

[davepesc]

Thanks for the answer. How do I turn on the cloud saving again?

 

Big copy/paste should help.

 

Set up cloud storage for saved games

 

 

To use cloud storage for your saved games, you need:

• An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership
  
• A console connected to Xbox LIVE
  
• 514 megabytes (MB) of storage space on your console (local cache)
  

Step 1: Turn on Cloud Saved Games (for a console)

1. From the Xbox Dashboard, go to Settings, and then select System.
   
2. Select Storage, and then select Cloud Saved Games.
   
3. Select Enable Cloud Saved Games.
   

A local cache is reserved on your console, and you can now save or move saved games to the cloud. For more information about this cache, see the section under When is my cloud game save uploaded to the cloud below.

If you get an error message when you turn on cloud saves games, see Troubleshoot game saves in the cloud.

Step 2: Save or move a saved game to the cloud

• New game: When you start a new game, the game usually asks you where you want to save your game progress (your saved game). If you turned on Cloud Saved Games (step 1), select Cloud Saved Games as the storage device. Now every time you sign into your Xbox LIVE profile and play the game, your saved game is automatically stored in the cloud.
  
• Existing game saves: If you have an existing saved game that you want to store in the cloud, you can move the saved game to the cloud. Here’s how:
  

1. Sign into your Xbox LIVE profile.
   
2. Go to Settings, and then select System.
   
3. Select Storage.
   
4. Select the storage device that contains the saved game that you want to move to the cloud.
   
5. Select Games.
   
6. Select the game with your saved game.
   
7. Select your saved game.
   
8. Select Move.
   
9. Select Cloud Saved Games.
   

You can copy, move, or delete saved games that are stored in the cloud, just as you would copy, move, or delete items on your hard drive. For more information, see Copy, move, or delete content.

Use a cloud game save on another console

1. Sign into your Xbox LIVE profile.
   
2. Turn on Cloud Saved Games (see Step 1: Turn on Cloud Saved Games above).
   
3. Start the game with the cloud game save.
   
4. When prompted, choose Cloud Saved Games as your storage device.
   

Now you can play on the other console, right where you left off. When you’re done playing, your game save is stored in the cloud.

When is my game save uploaded to the cloud?

 

While you’re playing a game, your game save is cached locally on your console. When you exit the game, your game save is automatically moved to the cloud. You don’t need to do anything to make this happen (other than the two setup steps above). If you look at your Active Downloads list, you can see the status of your game save being uploaded to the cloud (to see your active downloads, press the Guide button on your controller, go to Marketplace, and select Active Downloads).

In a hurry to turn off your console?

Don’t worry! You can turn off your console before a game save is uploaded to the cloud. When you turn off your console, your console stays in low power mode until the game save is uploaded to the cloud (that is, as long as the console has power and is connected to the Internet).

Important Unplugging your console or disconnecting your console from the Internet will cause the game save upload to pause until the next time your console connects to Xbox LIVE. If this happens, you won’t be able to use the saved game on any other consoles. If you get an error related to cloud game saves, see Troubleshoot game saves in the cloud.

Turn off cloud storage for saved games

 

There are two options to turn off cloud storage for game saves:

1. Move saved games out of the cloud and turn off cloud saves

First, you need to move your game saves out of the cloud. See Copy, move, or delete content for steps on how to move content from one storage device to another (for example, from Cloud Saved Games to Hard Drive).

Once you've done this, you can turn off cloud storage. Here’s how:

1. From the Xbox 360 Dashboard, go to Settings, and then select System.
   
2. Select Storage.
   
3. Highlight Cloud Saved Games, and then press Y.
   
4. Select Disable Cloud Saved Games.
   

2. Keep saved games in the cloud and turn off cloud saves

You can turn off cloud storage for a single console and keep your saved games in the cloud for you to use on another console. Here’s how:

1. From the Xbox Dashboard, go to Settings, and then select System.
   
2. Select Storage, and then select your primary storage device.
   
3. Select System Items, and then select Cloud Storage Console Copy.
   
4. Select Delete.
   

Note You will be asked to confirm that you want your saved games to remain in the cloud, and future updates to your saved games will not be synced with this console.

[NE146]

Oh wow.. first I heard of this. I was actually getting annoyed last night playing Puzzle Quest on my upstairs 360 that the game where I'm very far into it is on my downstairs 360

 

And no I don't have any memory cards.. this cloud storage (I hate that term by the way.. they mean "internet" storage..i.e. on their servers) could come in handy for that.

Edited January 15, 2012 by NE146

[HammR25]

It's not internet storage. It all just goes to some big cloud in the sky. Oh I mean cloud storage sounds a lot cooler than internet storage.

[NE146]

No it doesn't. But I'll tell you what does.. INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY.

 

So they should have named it INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY STORAGE. It's just 10x more grand.

 

<edit> or how bout Cyberspace? :\

[Cobra Kai]

To use cloud storage for your saved games, you need:

• An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership
  
• A console connected to Xbox LIVE
  
• 514 megabytes (MB) of storage space on your console (local cache)
  

So a GOLD membership is required. I was chided in another thread for suggesting that the next console will have mandatory GOLD, but this is yet another feature that will definitely be in any new generation, and it's another move that foreshadows my prediction. I won't be surprised if the next console will only boot up to a log-in screen that says you have to be subscribed to the 'service' to play games at all, much like Facebook does to unregistered users, you can only see a log-in/registration screen.

[onlysublime]

To use cloud storage for your saved games, you need:

• An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership
  
• A console connected to Xbox LIVE
  
• 514 megabytes (MB) of storage space on your console (local cache)
  

So a GOLD membership is required. I was chided in another thread for suggesting that the next console will have mandatory GOLD, but this is yet another feature that will definitely be in any new generation, and it's another move that foreshadows my prediction. I won't be surprised if the next console will only boot up to a log-in screen that says you have to be subscribed to the 'service' to play games at all, much like Facebook does to unregistered users, you can only see a log-in/registration screen.

 

They'll never have mandatory gold. That's more paranoia on your part. It's all about features and what you're comfortable paying for. Cloud saves are not a necessity. They're a luxury. There are ways to do the same thing without having cloud saves (have flash drives, memory cards, etc.).

 

You go into the store to buy a car. No one says you need to buy the sunroof, the GPS navigation, the 12 speaker sound system, etc. If you don't like what they offer, you don't buy. For all that Gold offers, $3/month is nothing to me (right now buy.com is selling 12 months for $37 by the way; Amazon and Best Buy are selling it for $40).

Edited January 15, 2012 by onlysublime

[Cobra Kai]

To use cloud storage for your saved games, you need:

• An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership
  
• A console connected to Xbox LIVE
  
• 514 megabytes (MB) of storage space on your console (local cache)
  

So a GOLD membership is required. I was chided in another thread for suggesting that the next console will have mandatory GOLD, but this is yet another feature that will definitely be in any new generation, and it's another move that foreshadows my prediction. I won't be surprised if the next console will only boot up to a log-in screen that says you have to be subscribed to the 'service' to play games at all, much like Facebook does to unregistered users, you can only see a log-in/registration screen.

 

They'll never have mandatory gold. That's more paranoia on your part. It's all about features and what you're comfortable paying for. Cloud saves are not a necessity. They're a luxury. There are ways to do the same thing without having cloud saves (have flash drives, memory cards, etc.).

 

You go into the store to buy a car. No one says you need to buy the sunroof, the GPS navigation, the 12 speaker sound system, etc. If you don't like what they offer, you don't buy. For all that Gold offers, $3/month is nothing to me (right now buy.com is selling 12 months for $37 by the way; Amazon and Best Buy are selling it for $40).

 

This late in the life cycle of the xbox 360, all these new techs are trial runs for the new system, end of story. This isn't the launch year of the 360 where we're getting all this cool new tech that will last us for the following 5 years. It's year 7 of the 360, and this is all being done to measure popularity and success. Kinect is the same thing, a tech that was thrown out there to see if people actually wanted it.

 

Why cloud right now? I'll explain it very simply: No hard drive in the future. What a great way to lower manufacturing costs.

 

Mandatory Gold is not going to be implemented on the 360, and I can't figure out why you keep thinking that's what I'm talking about. My predictions for the next Xbox are as follows:

• non-disc based system, download only games. Stored in the cloud? (mainly, it's the game companies pushing towards this as they hate used game sales which they don't see a dime from)
  
• cloud storage (no more hard drive, everything you 'own' on your system will be actually controlled from the cloud, and by Microsoft and the game companies, and your ability to keep an internet connection. I accept I may be wrong on the hard drive thing, I mean how do you keep your games without a hard drive? But it may all be done from the cloud who knows.)
  
• Mandatory Gold (they simply can't offer all these techs without making you pay for the service, since the service will be entirely done online. The entirety of your gaming will require an internet connection and to be connected to the 'service', no more offline gaming. People who play games offline are now an anachronism. This is not how I view gamers, this is how game companies view gamers)
  
• Kinect (a major success on the 360. Without a hard drive or a disc drive, the kinect device will be most of the console, in fact I can see the new Xbox being very small as a machine in total. Makes me wonder about the new controller, I'll bet they're deciding on even packing in a controller with the new console at this point)
  

As for your poor car analogy, the consumer is no longer going to be offered a bare bones Car, it's going to be between the fully loaded Nissan or the fully loaded Toyota.

[onlysublime]

To use cloud storage for your saved games, you need:

• An Xbox LIVE Gold Membership
  
• A console connected to Xbox LIVE
  
• 514 megabytes (MB) of storage space on your console (local cache)
  

So a GOLD membership is required. I was chided in another thread for suggesting that the next console will have mandatory GOLD, but this is yet another feature that will definitely be in any new generation, and it's another move that foreshadows my prediction. I won't be surprised if the next console will only boot up to a log-in screen that says you have to be subscribed to the 'service' to play games at all, much like Facebook does to unregistered users, you can only see a log-in/registration screen.

 

They'll never have mandatory gold. That's more paranoia on your part. It's all about features and what you're comfortable paying for. Cloud saves are not a necessity. They're a luxury. There are ways to do the same thing without having cloud saves (have flash drives, memory cards, etc.).

 

You go into the store to buy a car. No one says you need to buy the sunroof, the GPS navigation, the 12 speaker sound system, etc. If you don't like what they offer, you don't buy. For all that Gold offers, $3/month is nothing to me (right now buy.com is selling 12 months for $37 by the way; Amazon and Best Buy are selling it for $40).

 

This late in the life cycle of the xbox 360, all these new techs are trial runs for the new system, end of story. This isn't the launch year of the 360 where we're getting all this cool new tech that will last us for the following 5 years. It's year 7 of the 360, and this is all being done to measure popularity and success. Kinect is the same thing, a tech that was thrown out there to see if people actually wanted it.

 

Why cloud right now? I'll explain it very simply: No hard drive in the future. What a great way to lower manufacturing costs.

 

Mandatory Gold is not going to be implemented on the 360, and I can't figure out why you keep thinking that's what I'm talking about. My predictions for the next Xbox are as follows:

• non-disc based system, download only games. Stored in the cloud? (mainly, it's the game companies pushing towards this as they hate used game sales which they don't see a dime from)
  
• cloud storage (no more hard drive, everything you 'own' on your system will be actually controlled from the cloud, and by Microsoft and the game companies, and your ability to keep an internet connection. I accept I may be wrong on the hard drive thing, I mean how do you keep your games without a hard drive? But it may all be done from the cloud who knows.)
  
• Mandatory Gold (they simply can't offer all these techs without making you pay for the service, since the service will be entirely done online. The entirety of your gaming will require an internet connection and to be connected to the 'service', no more offline gaming. People who play games offline are now an anachronism. This is not how I view gamers, this is how game companies view gamers)
  
• Kinect (a major success on the 360. Without a hard drive or a disc drive, the kinect device will be most of the console, in fact I can see the new Xbox being very small as a machine in total. Makes me wonder about the new controller, I'll bet they're deciding on even packing in a controller with the new console at this point)
  

As for your poor car analogy, the consumer is no longer going to be offered a bare bones Car, it's going to be between the fully loaded Nissan or the fully loaded Toyota.

 

you live in lala land. The next Xbox is here in a year or two and will not all these radical ideas you have.

 

Your arguments don't even tie together. You say a system with no hard drive but a download only model? How does that work? Flash memory? You know how expensive flash memory is at sufficient quantities?

 

An Xbox that requires a broadband connection to work? A lot of the US doesn't even get decent broadband. People who game offline are an anachronism? Microsoft leads all the gaming companies in online penetration, but yet the vast majority of the Xboxes aren't even hooked up to the Internet for Xbox Live Free.

 

You see to be confusing Microsoft with OnLive.

 

Mandatory Gold? Everybody knows you have to do tiered pricing to have broad acceptance. Society doesn't change over night. We have tiered pricing and multiple options throughout all the industries from cable TV to sporting events to types of bank accounts to everything else. Sony threw the kitchen sink into the first PS3 and has slowly been trimming features and increasing the number of configurations. People need the ability to spread out payments and that's what the 360 offers. You can get a 4GB system and down the road get a hard drive. You can start with Xbox Live Free and then play with Gold to see if it fits you before you buy.

 

The next Xbox will not be the Wii incarnate. I love Kinect more than most people but it'll never be the defining device of Xbox.

 

And I have no idea what part of the world you live in where every car at the dealership is fully loaded with options. At that point, they're not even options anymore and are standard. O_o

 

If you're going to make an argument, make sense.

[JamesD]

Just a little rant here...

"The Cloud" is just an attempt to bring back the old time share business model where you pay someone else for the privilege of accessing their system. Sure, it's cheaper now and a flat rate rather than by the hour, but it''s the same old thing with a new name.

If Microsoft didn't want to strong arm you into buying a gold subscription, they could allow you to mirror game saves and your profile on a USB stick that could be taken from one console to another WITHOUT "The Cloud".

[NE146]

If Microsoft didn't want to strong arm you into buying a gold subscription, they could allow you to mirror game saves and your profile on a USB stick that could be taken from one console to another WITHOUT "The Cloud".

 

uhhh wouldn't that be what the memory stick was for?

 

[onlysublime]

If Microsoft didn't want to strong arm you into buying a gold subscription, they could allow you to mirror game saves and your profile on a USB stick that could be taken from one console to another WITHOUT "The Cloud".

 

huh? you can already do that. you can copy your game saves onto as many flash drives or memory cards as you like. and take that storage device to any console you want.

[JamesD]

Since when do "mirror" and "copy" mean the same thing?

[Austin]

Just a little rant here... "The Cloud" is just an attempt to bring back the old time share business model where you pay someone else for the privilege of accessing their system. Sure, it's cheaper now and a flat rate rather than by the hour, but it''s the same old thing with a new name. If Microsoft didn't want to strong arm you into buying a gold subscription, they could allow you to mirror game saves and your profile on a USB stick that could be taken from one console to another WITHOUT "The Cloud".

 

Of course it's something MS will be able to flaunt to give users another reason to buy into Gold. I doubt this will become the de-facto standard though. Other platforms currently offer cloud storage for free, and I do not see them changing directions any time soon. Example: Steam.

[onlysublime]

Since when do "mirror" and "copy" mean the same thing?

 

what do you want the Xbox to do? do a RAID stripe?

[Cobra Kai]

I think we should have a discussion about what the new consoles will be in another, dedicated, thread. I'll post my crazy ideas in that later, and welcome the ridicule.

[moycon]

If Microsoft didn't want to strong arm you into buying a gold subscription, they could allow you to mirror game saves and your profile on a USB stick that could be taken from one console to another WITHOUT "The Cloud".

 

You can already copy your gamertag profile to any USB stick and use it in any 360. You can already copy game saves to any USB stick and take them with you on the go.

Neither is a difficult task that takes very long. Do "mirror" and "copy" mean the same thing? No.

To copy your game saves you simply have to keep up with your game save files and transfer them yourself to whatever USB stick you want. To mirror your games saves to any 360 or USB stick in any 360 attached to the internet in the world, requires a network, storage servers, software to sync and transfer the files, and people to keep it all running. They are different.

 

I can understand how anyone would love services provided to them for free. Who wouldn't?

Still, I seriously doubt anyone (well, except maybe a few people on AA) feel that they are being strong-armed by MS to pay $3 a month for Gold so they can use the cloud, and all the other things I mentioned that go along with it, especially when they have a free alternative. I think to many, the $3.00 a month is a fair price to pay for not only this service, but many others, some of which also offer free alternatives (Netflix) and others that do not (discounts on DLC)

 

For sure I'd love to get my cell phone use for free every month. Does anyone here get their cell phone use for nothing? How about Cable TV? Does anyone get free cable TV? Does anyone here have an electric bill sent every month? Is it free? I ask these things because some people complain an awful lot about Live Gold and it's cost. I never hear them complain about other services that cost significantly more cash (even $100's a month) and one could argue, significantly less service in return for their cash. Just wondering why that is?

[Cobra Kai]

I agree we should pay for certain services offered on the xbox, and at least for now we have the alternative not to. Of course the future could paint a very different picture, which is my concern. The problem lies with the fact that it's an all or nothing selection, even cable companies offer packages that to cater to certain types of viewers, with different tiers of channel selections. Besides that, I just don't see any way the next console offers any kind of free access, there's just too much going on, and MS themselves have stated they want an all encompassing home entertainment machine that has everything you could ever want.

 

The thing I've enjoyed most about Live over the years was actually their Movie and TV service, where you just paid for rentals and it doesn't require a Gold account. I thought this was a great model for them. Now it's called Zune I believe, but I haven't used it in awhile. I can envision something similar next-gen where your movie is in the 'cloud' and streaming from there, never requiring any kind of hard storage on your xbox. I'm sure that's possible, and if that's possible, then I don't see why games in their entirety can't be in the cloud, kind of like a high tech sega channel.

[moycon]

Of course the future could paint a very different picture, which is my concern.

 

In the 1950's people all over America started spending their hard earned cash on materials to build bomb shelters and rations of food in case they were bombarded with nuclear missiles.

The energy and cash were wasted.

Long story short. I wouldn't worry so much about what you think might happen a couple years from now.

 

In their case if the worst of the worst happened they probably would have died a slow death from radiation anyways. In your scenario, you just wouldn't buy something you didn't like.

I'd say live for the now and enjoy your 360 same as you ever did.