Xbox Live isn’t a new thing, and we’ve had multiplayer gaming through Microsoft’s service with this generation of console hardware. Cloud computing with Xbox One is meant to take that a step further, and Titanfall developer Respawn Entertainment has decided to tell us how.
Microsoft’s cloud computing solution for Xbox One is basically the Azure platform repackaged for games. What it boils down to is thousands of servers in data centers around the world made available to game developers to handle processing of any and all tasks. Microsoft charges developers to use their cloud platform, but Respawn has stated that it’s much cheaper than renting servers from a third-party host.
Cost savings are great, but the biggest advantage according to Respawn is ease of use. As Microsoft already has data centers around the world, there’s no need to worry about having enough servers available to handle the load when releasing a new game as it just scales automatically. Microsoft claims there’s 3 servers for every gamer on Xbox One, but those servers will also be distributed so they are geographically close to a player’s location, meaning low latency connections for everyone. The servers are also managed by Microsoft, so the developer deploys their code and it just works.
As Microsoft’s Xbox One cloud is just this huge pool of computing power, developers can use it however they see fit. In the case of Forza 5, Turn 10 will be using it for handling multiplayer, but also for their Drivatar feature, which improves the game AI based on your driving ability. That processing and monitoring is all done in the cloud, and therefore not taking up valuable CPU time on individual consoles.
For Respawn and Titanfall, the cloud is for multiplayer. It allows them to offer the equivalent of a dedicated server experience to gamers without the involved costs or headache of setting up and running the servers. It also means they can manage multiplayer across Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC all through a single service, which again saves on cost and workload.
The main takeaway from this is Microsoft has decided to offer developers access to a massive amount of off console processing power while at the same time taking all the pain out of multiplayer features and distributed computing for very little cost. Just as importantly though, they’ve left it completely open meaning developers don’t have to use it, but if they do, they can do so however they wish. To me, that means we could get some nice innovation and games using the cloud in ways we haven’t seen before.
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