Cutting though the BullCrap: Xbone cloud

Cloud Computing ?

Microsoft is now claiming they will be using cloud computing to:

Game developers can now create persistent worlds that encompass tens or hundreds of thousands of players without taxing any individual console, and those worlds that they built can be lusher and more vibrant than ever before because the cloud persists and is always there, always computing.

Have Microsoft created quantum graphics rendering ? because no amount of ' cloud ' will be able to load assets fast enough unless you start doing some sort of On Live style rendering. Which would also be a waste of time.

What I think they are trying to say is the Xbone can do MMO's

Those worlds can live on in between game sessions

Yes, we call those MMO's or persistent worlds. Also in the past dedicated servers on the PC when there was no such thing as a 'host player' just a server that keeped running 24 hours a day. Usually run by fans of the game, not the money hungry gaming company's.

If one player drops out, that world will continue on and can experience the effects of time, like wear from weather damage, so that when a player comes back into the universe it's actually a slightly evolved place in the same way that our real world evolves a little bit from the time we go to sleep to the time we wake up. Game developers have given us incredibly positive feedback on the crazy different ways that they can use this incredible new cloud power resource.

 This can be done already, in fact it was done decades  ago in Ultima Online but the question is, is this what you want in a single player game ?

This ' cloud ' doesn't justify having the console always connected. Its a load of hype from some suit who has ideas but no clue.