Gamesindustry: Xbox Live Compute (Cloud Servers) offered free to devs

bleachrude said:
The other question is what CAN a developer do with the knowledge that they can have 3 times the computing power on a server plus the xobox itself. Frankly, I seriously doubt anyone on Neogaf has the slightest clue what this actually means...
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It means the games' cloud services are allocated 3x the amount of CPU/Storage that each Xbone has.
Pretty simple haha :P

Now what can a developer do with that? We'll see :P
But so far we've seen all multiplayer games announced to be using dedicated servers.

Skeff said:
FTFY ;-)

But seriously this is good news and good business, but keep your expectations in check.
If I was being really cynical I'd point out they're aiming for a always online system :-)
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Dude lol, they've confirmed that all games have access to the cloud services for free

YB0wmXH.png
 
Bsigg12 said:
The Azure platform doesn't act like a typical hardware server though. It's all virtualized and the system spins more servers up on the fly depending on load.
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Yes, but if up to the first 1k are free, then game like CoD would have to still pay for the other 299k. But small games will really benefit from this.
 
Muntu said:
You decided to go Xbone out of spite for people who aren't gonna go Xbone? Oh my!

I love forcefullpower's post though. Stuff like that makes reading NeoGAF a joy.
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Huh?

No, I will be buying an xbox bc that's where my friends will be.

Everyone throwing fits and pushing MS to better their console was what I was referring to. No spite there.
 
GoofsterStud said:
This seems like a weird reversal. They went from a plan to charge customers with DRM, adds, Xbox Live (dedicated servers) while also charging the developers for dedicated servers...to this.

Things must be dire. This makes me worried that they are having a hard time courting future development... It gives me the feeling that even the developers are lacking confidence in the Xbox One's future.... It worries me that CBOAT could be right...again.
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Wow...this is just pathetic

Skeff said:
Doesn't say you can play online without gold though so what's the news there exactly?
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Free to play game not locked behind Gold?
 
HawksWinStanley said:
Honestly with some of the stuff I've been reading on GAF the past few months I can't really blame him. If picking the lesser console eliminates the chances of running into some of the people on here online then that might be worth the extra $100 alone. It's really getting pathetic.
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Are you serious? Sorry dude, but that's literally the dumbest reason I've heard for choosing one over the other. Especially when it works both ways.

The cold fact is that you ARE going to run into tons and tons of idiots online.

Tripp Daily said:
Huh?

No, I will be buying an xbox bc that's where my friends will be.

Everyone throwing fits and pushing MS to better their console was what I was referring to. No spite there.
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Yeah, it was a joke.
 
I can already tell this dedicated thing is going to be used as some kind of argument for years to come. Or we will all still enjoy games and not even realize that we are on dedicated servers on Xbone and PS4.
 
bleachrude said:
The other question is what CAN a developer do with the knowledge that they can have 3 times the computing power on a server plus the xobox itself. Frankly, I seriously doubt anyone on Neogaf has the slightest clue what this actually means...
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We all know what it means .. combine this with the Xbone myth that there won't be 1080p games .. ;)
 
Skeff said:
Yes, but if up to the first 1k are free, then game like CoD would have to still pay for the other 299k. But small games will really benefit from this.
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If free cloud resources are given per user, then your resources would scale with the higher number of users. The limit seems like a hedge by MS to force devs to optimize net code as unlimited resources would likely lead to inefficient/sloppy usage. No reason COD dedis can't be coded to optimize at 3x the compute of an Xbox one per player.
 
It really does sound like all Xbox One games will have dedicated (or cloud hosted as Microsoft is calling it) servers. If you received their latest PR email (the one with the subject line "If you love multiplayer, this one's for you") then there are a few interesting tidbits:

"Play Fast and Fair

Hosting games in the cloud provides a performance boost and neutralizes host player advantages.

Powered by Over 300,000 Servers

Enjoy cloud-hosted multiplayer that's faster and fairer, with a level playing field for all. The Xbox Live heritage is built upon a proven multiplayer service."

http://view.engage.xbox.com/?j=fefa...2&jb=ff031570766305&ju=fe8315797d6c007573&r=0

Very welcome news if most (if not all) Xbox One games will have dedicated servers.
 
hopefully, this isn't just more of MS' cloud of smoke and mirrors... if it is, it's gonna bite them in the ass, again. smh
 
GoofsterStud said:
How many?
How long of time frame?

Is it free for one year? Is it free indefinitely so the server will stay on?

Either way it's a step in the right direction.
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The whole point of the cloud is that there are servers just sitting there

if 32 players appear and they all want to play Battlefield 4, the server boots up the software needed to support Battlefield 4 and all of those players get to play.

Later on in the day those players may not be playing and the server returns to it's blank state, then 8 players might turn up wanting a game on Forza 5. The server spins up the software require to now become a Forza Server.

Whilst this 8 player game is happening, maybe some other people Log into Xbox Live wanting a game on COD, the server simultaneously boots up the software requried to be a COD dedicated server and is a dedicated server for both COD and Forza at the same time.

This server could be dealing with multiple games with potentially thousands of people concurrently.
Microsoft have said they will have 300,000 of these servers worldwide.


It doesn't matter to Microsoft whether or not anybody is playing a game, the resources are there for the games to use them as required. This is the elasticity they speak of.
It also doesn't matter whether nobody has played a particular game or if there are only 30 people worldwide wanting to play, the resources to be a server are there, so it should mean that developers won't need to close servers.
 
Muntu said:
Are you serious? Sorry dude, but that's literally the dumbest reason I've heard for choosing one over the other. Especially when it works both ways.

The cold fact is that you ARE going to run into tons and tons of idiots online.



Yeah, it was a joke.
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Obviously no, but you have to admit it is getting pretty fucking old.
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
I can already tell this dedicated thing is going to be used as some kind of argument for years to come. Or we will all still enjoy games and not even realize that we are on dedicated servers on Xbone and PS4.
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That's what we said about resolution, turns out we will care. Because it's another bullet point.
 
This is actually really smart. Since all resources are virtualized and instances would be provisioned on demand, there's really not a huge difference between offering free dedicated servers to every developer or just for their own games. In both cases, the number of servers will be much more influenced by the number of consoles out there and not necessary how many games are hosted on azure.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the reasons they decided to just offer it for free. It's probably not a huge step up from what they would need for Halo/Forza etc. anyway, and since a console can only play one game, there's a practical limit to how many instances they would need to provision.

And no, this isn't something that Sony can "copy" by renting 10 boxes from Rackspace or going with AWS.
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
I can already tell this dedicated thing is going to be used as some kind of argument for years to come. Or we will all still enjoy games and not even realize that we are on dedicated servers on Xbone and PS4.
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How is this any different than the specs wars that goes on constantly? Some people might not notice the graphical difference between the consoles, some might not notice the network differences between the two.

If you care, then you can discuss it. If not, let others.
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
I can already tell this dedicated thing is going to be used as some kind of argument for years to come. Or we will all still enjoy games and not even realize that we are on dedicated servers on Xbone and PS4.
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oh, i won't notice when my ping drops from 100-200ms to 10ms? really?
 
nynt9 said:
Killzone SF will have dedicated servers, and I'm fairly certain some other first party Sony games used dedicated servers, but I might be wrong.
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Killzone does NOT have dedicated servers. Killzone's dedicated servers seem more like servers that pick which host PS4 is the best one to use.
 
Can Crusher said:
If this is true then every game on Xbox One will have dedicated servers, so if one pops out that doesn't have dedicated servers it will be another bold lie by MS.

Pretty huge selling point imo, at least if the heavy hitters like Battlefield and COD have servers on Xbox One and no servers on PS4. Otherwise then this won't even matter if developers put dedicated servers on PS4 too.

Waiting to see what happens.
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We already know that CoD will have dedicated servers on all platforms. And BF3 had dedicated servers for PS3. I really doubt there will be any big AAA title which will have dedicated servers on one platform and not on the other. It also doesn't make much sense from a development perspective, you do not want to develop a network implementation for dedicated servers and one for P2P. For one it does cost double the amount, and it also requires double the service effort because they have to maintain two different systems, which also means more sources for errors. It is much, much easier to develop a system with dedicated servers for both platforms and just rent the ones you need for the PS4 version.

And this talk about "smaller devs" having an advantage is also nonsense, because they will certainly not implement two different network systems. They will also rent dedicated server for the PS4 if necessary. This is "nice" for devs, but I really can't see how this will translate into advantages for us gamers.
 
Wired said this a long time ago but I've since been informed that it didn't count since it wasn't a direct quote from a MS rep. I guess this is no different.

This quote has me questioning just what is free:

"We've even heard stories where the developers have had that and wanted to shut down games and servers over time and that really does disrupt their communities. One of the big advantages of our service is that it's completely on demand, so that as games wax and wane in popularity so do the resources that get applied to it from Compute. Providing that elastic scale at a really beneficial cost price point is a big benefit to developers."
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You normally wouldn't describe free as a beneficial cost price point, would you?

Would love for dedicated server support for all multiplayer games to be true, personally. That'd be solid competition.
 
Garrett 2U said:
It means the games' cloud services are allocated 3x the amount of CPU/Storage that each Xbone has.
Pretty simple haha :P

Now what can a developer do with that? We'll see :P
But so far we've seen all multiplayer games announced to be using dedicated servers.



Dude lol, they've confirmed that all games have access to the cloud services for free

YB0wmXH.png
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Hey thats my tweet! So stoked we got the 100% confirmation so people cant play with their words. This is good news for PS4 owners as it does seem unlikely publishers would have two forms of multiplayer.
 
NullPointer said:
Wired said this a long time ago but I've since been informed that it didn't count since it wasn't a direct quote from a MS rep. I guess this is no different.

This quote has me questioning just what is free:


You normally wouldn't describe free as a beneficial cost price point, would you?

Would love for dedicated server support for all multiplayer games to be true, personally. That'd be solid competition.
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Obviously they changed their policy, because it is pretty clear now that it is free.
 
nynt9 said:
Killzone SF will have dedicated servers, and I'm fairly certain some other first party Sony games used dedicated servers, but I might be wrong.
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Killzone is somewhere in-between, they have servers for routing information, but the game is still hosted by one of the players.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2013/09/27/killzone-shadow-fall-multiplayer-your-questions-answered/
Killzone Shadow Fall has dedicated servers hosted in various regions around the world. These servers do not run the logic of the game – they only act as a hub between the clients, forwarding network traffic from one player in game to all other players in game. This allows people with a slower connection or strict firewall settings to play without issues. Almost all logic relating to you (e.g. moving, shooting and taking damage) runs on your local PS4, with only a very small portion of the game logic (i.e. mission/scoring logic) running on the ‘session master’, one PS4 in the game selected for its connection quality.
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edit. Wow, late. :P
 
Barzul said:
You want to know what the incentive is? More people playing on and subscribing to XBL Gold. That's it. There is no implication that they will start charging for it, because they could have just stated for free initially. They're providing it for free so that developers actually use cloud compute and transition to using it from not having used it previously.
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Haha, oh so naive... You know why MS didn't make it clear? Because people like you actually believe it. And more people subscribing to gold? They didn't need an incentive besides being the only way to play online until now and they won't need another incentive in the future, escially if this incentive costs them millions of dollars.
 
LiquidMetal14 said:
I can already tell this dedicated thing is going to be used as some kind of argument for years to come. Or we will all still enjoy games and not even realize that we are on dedicated servers on Xbone and PS4.
Click to expand...

That is because dedicated servers is a good thing, and if it is free to developers then it is even better.

What I'm curious about is how many multiplatforms will have dedicated servers on Xbone and not have them on PS4. Could anyone enlighten me on how much difference it would make in terms of dollars/time spent on developing one version with dedicated servers and another with P2P structure?
 
nynt9 said:
Killzone SF will have dedicated servers, and I'm fairly certain some other first party Sony games used dedicated servers, but I might be wrong.
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KZSF will have servers, but they won't be dedicated servers in the way that most people think of when they think of dedicated servers. If you look at what an Xbox One game like Titanfall is doing with dedicated servers, you've got: Matchmaking, stat tracking, and hosting the game. Servers for KZSF will do matchmaking and stat tracking, but the game will still be hosted p2p on someone's PS4; it's more of a hybrid p2p/dedicated system then true dedicated servers. This system should be benificial to the game over p2p, but it's not quite full on dedicated servers.

Edit: Beaten
 
Uh... so basically devs can "the cloud" for free? I'd assumed this was the case already. Jesus, can you imagine if they were charging for something like that?

But yeah, as with all things MS these days, I'll believe it when I see it, not when they say it.
 
DopeyFish said:
You say that like its a guarantee. See: last 13 years of online console gaming and all those dedicated servers that weren't around for a majority of the games.

You think a small dev/pub is gonna fork out for dedis? Of course not.
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Ofcource indies wont, im talking about AAA games, the ones that a lot of people actually play online. Those games will want to get feature parity and seeing its free on X1, they'll fork up the cash for the PS4.

Bsigg12 said:
Who says this? If a developer is trying to maintain feature parity sure they'll have to get resources together for the PS4 version. If a Dev makes a game and is able to use this for free on the Xbox One and it's more cost effective to go P2P on the PS4, then that can happen.
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For a multiplayer game, no dev would have dedies on one and not one on the other...
 
PureGone said:
Ofcource indies wont, im talking about AAA games, the ones that a lot of people actually play online. Those games will want to get feature parity and seeing its free on X1, they'll fork up the cash for the PS4.
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oh, they'll fork out the cash "just because", right?

just because meaning just because you want them to?

haha good luck with that.
 
**Warning: this article contains positive outlooks and opinions on MS and the Cloud
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Perfect.

It's interesting how the PS4 and its dev environment have been blown up so tightly with fanatical helium at this point. Reality will eventually set in once we realize it's not all faery dust and unicorn farts, and it can do nothing but disappoint from there.
 
Great news. Xbone is looking better and better. If they didn't that clusterfuck of reveal annoucment they would have been in a better place.
 
Muntu said:
Hey at least it's entertaining.
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It was at first but when I go into a thread looking for info and have to sift through piles of shit like "h4v3 U s33n T1tAnF4LL!!1?!1 LOL!!!1!!" it gets to the point I'd rather head over to IGN's forums to get any semblance of gaming info.
 
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