Games Thirst – Amazing Life
Microsoft discusses “the future”, which doesn’t sound bad.
Xbox Live Compute is a new system that will allow develoeprs to utilize the scalable computing resources that Microsoft deploys within each of their regional datacenters, and in doing so, it will allow them to surpass the limits set by the hardware creator. Huge server resources relieve developers of the costly pain of having to set up, maintain and run servers of massive scale — it will be free.
On an Xbox Wire update, Lead Xbox Live Program Manager John Bruno discussed the cloud and Xbox Live Compute.
“If you have played a lot of multiplayer games, you know that playing on dedicated game servers has advantages over peer-to-peer gameplay. With server-based multiplayer gaming, not only can more players play the game (think hundreds of players simultaneously), the gameplay will be much more reliable for the players. No more host migration interruptions, suboptimal experiences for the host, home network NAT constraints, or player cheating! Additionally, Xbox Live Compute can be utilized to persist game state so that your squad can live to fight another day without losing any progress. A great example of a game that is using Xbox Live Compute for their dedicated server multiplayer experience is ‘Titanfall.”
Later on, Microsoft director of product planning Albert Penello confirmed on Twitter that the Compute system will be free and available for all Xbox One games.
Our take: This might be bigger than it sounds. If it is easy to work with, I can see every developer going the Compute route and adding dedicated servers to their game, which will not only vastly improve the experience for the players, but will also pave the way for a more reliable online competitive scene, accessible from everyone’s console.
