One of my basic thoughts is changing level structure of ai opponents based on the gaming collectives' history with a level. Say there are 10 different ways to enter a compound. Vanilla level has guards mainly tightly controlling 6 of the ten tightly (b,c,h,i,j,k), and 4 of them in larger paths (a,d,e,f,g). After 80% of gamers targeted a certain 5 of the entrances (a,c,d,f,g,h), guard routines are sent down by the 'cloud' to adjust their paths. Now, (a,b,c,d,f,g,h) are the tightly covered entrances with lower 'spook' meters--making these entrances much harder to use.
The ai routine defaults to a certain path and structure, but the cloud offers the ability to dynamically alter the weights of certain locations on the game-map. Cutting off previous scenarios and encouraging players to move a certain way through the map that hasn't previously been explored by other players.
----
In Forza, they collect a lot of data on players previously to make an AI. That AI was crunched client side. With the 'cloud', they could iterate much more quickly on the algorithm to create these AIs, and also deploy them in much smaller batches. They could collect much more data and crunch it while the players console is offline rather than forcing them to wait.
In FPS, the entire global player data can be collected and analyzed. CS:GO, Valve tracks every bullet fired by every gun and where it hits other players. They track the kills/shot avg, and HS percentage, etc etc. Developers might be able to utlize that massive amount of information about how players are playing their games to create more useful client updates or dynamic map alterations.
With an RPG, you could enter a city which pings your entrance to a dev's cloud setup. Say you have some friends on your friends list, or friends of friends of friends all get lumped together into a virtual instance of the city where you can see other players. Similar to guildwars, but within a purely single-player experience. You might be able to trade loot with the players, but you can't group up. How crazy would it have been to be running around Ni No Kuni with other players that populate the cities?
Again, nothing unique, but lower cost in developing the hardware and infrastructure frees up resources to reinvest in creating different interactive experiences. My hope is to see the Demon Souls/Dark Souls inter-player relationships become more interesting as this next generation unfolds. This cloud infrastructure appears to me to indicate that the xbox team is investing heavily in these types of experiences, and encouraging developers to develop around 'interactive and dynamic' events.
EDIT: And of course my thoughts are just simple exercises...they could be completely garbage. Just my brief thoughts on such possibilities. I'm no game designer, but this and interactivity using the online systems are what I want from this generation. Increased graphics are one thing. Dynamic events and worlds and games are far, far more interesting to me.