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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Respawn Entertainment gives more detail about the Cloud and Titanfall

Fei-Hung on 25 June 2013

Good read, but it leaves me with more questions:

1) MS said 300k servers yet the author avoids stating exactly how many dedicated servers their cloud will have. If there really 300k dedicated servers, those numbers would be rolling of this guys lips, not dancing around it.

2) in regards to single player games, how much memory does Titanfall or Forza AI eat up?! I only ask this because if it isn't gigs worth, then PS4 could easily support this with the extra memory it has built in.

3) in regards to MP, is the author indirectly saying that other cloud services cannot it anyway or shape make this cloud computing service available?! I'm not a techie, but it seems to be a software service within a hardware set up. It's only the software side Sony and other publishers are lacking.

4) most Sony published titles if not all run on dedicated servers and games like Killzone have always had a dozen or more AI controlled static turrets, non static flying and companion bots. How many more AI controlled characters / androids/ vehicles/ mechs will we see on Titanfall?

5) how deep will the AI be for them?


Another thing which is really odd is how this guy went to both MS and Sony yet all the official interviews say the opposite. Officially, MS went to them a long time ago and offered them their platform and services to develop this game for and due to this act, the game was built originally for this system. There can only be 3 possible reasons for this:

1) official statement and interviews are lies
2) this guy is lying
3) both statements are correct as this is a multiplatform game and Sony have also been approached.

If statement 1 is correct, it's stupid of Respawn to lie over such a stupid thing as they could just say they are exclusive because out of the 2, they preferred the MS set up. They didn't say this. They said it was due to being approached by MS for this project when Respawn was set up they chose to go Exclusive.

If statement 2 is correct, what a silly thing to do and for what purpose?! As what he says doesn't add much if anything at all in regards to substance and what most of us didn't know already.

If statement 3 is correct, does that mean the PS4 version will be gimped and should be avoided as the cloud computing is essential for making this game work and no one else can replicate it?!



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binary solo on 25 June 2013
J_Allard said:
Machiavellian said:
binary solo said:
Machiavellian said:
psrock said:

I personally talked to both Microsoft and Sony and explained that we need to find a way to have potentially hundreds-of-thousands of dedicated servers at a price point that you can’t get right now. Microsoft realized that player-hosted servers are actually holding back online gaming and that this is something that they could help solve, and ran full-speed with this idea.

 

Did they pass on the Soy consoles because they got a better deal on MS cloud or lets keep waiting for the game in 2015. 

 

BTW, MS is going to make tons of money with this cloud thing. 


Well, if you are building a MP only game and one company gives you their services for pennies and another service you have to build your own.  On PSN, Sony does not run dedicated servers for 3rd party companies.  Those companies would have to either purchase their own or role with someone like Amazon which could be expensive. 

Amazon could be more expensive than Azure because?

I suppose because MS takes a cut of each game sold they can sell Azure capacity to 3rd parties for a bit less. In essence though, if the cloud is just processing capacity for hire then any game on any system can use cloud processing as long as the publisher is willing to pay for it. The real advantage of course is for MS 1st party games given MS doesn't have to pay itself for cloud processing they can make extensive use of it.

Or is Xbox use of Azure going to be largely covered by Gold subs, so 3rd parties don't need to pay at all?

I guess what I'm asking is, other than MS promoting the use of the cloud for gaming, what exactly is special about MS itself having all these server farms as opposed to outsourcing cloud processing?

Not really sure I understand the question.  MS sells services through their cloud which they make a lot of money from.  Because they have this huge infrastructure and probably more processing power to spare, they have decided to give that spare to their Xbox division for developer use.  They are giving it away for free.  A developer big or small does not have to create or purchase from another company like Amazon.  MS datacenters are world wide this allowing developers to host dedicated servers locally to anyone in the world.  

I don't think it's free. It wasn't free for Respawn.

So basically it comes down to being a cheaper option (probably) for 3rd parties and MS is actively promoting it, surprise surprise since they want to generate revenue from these 300,000 servers.



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J_Allard on 25 June 2013

According to Respawn, it is very cheap. And it would only make sense for it to be very cheap, otherwise nothing would change from this gen. An EA title using MS servers instead of their own should tell us all we need to know.



dahuman on 25 June 2013

so, it's like a cluster of MMO servers.......... technology that started in the late 90s finally makes it to their marketing ploy in 2013! :D



Dr.J on 25 June 2013

I think MS is over-emphasizing "cloud" technology... "Dedicated servers" is much less obtuse and straight to the point. Dedicated servers help a game's balance. That's pretty much everything about Titanfall's cloud tech that needs to be said.



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Nsanity on 25 June 2013
dahuman said:
so, it's like a cluster of MMO servers.......... technology that started in the late 90s finally makes it to their marketing ploy in 2013! :D

It's actually quite the opposite.



dahuman on 25 June 2013
Nsanity said:
dahuman said:
so, it's like a cluster of MMO servers.......... technology that started in the late 90s finally makes it to their marketing ploy in 2013! :D

It's actually quite the opposite.

It's just using a lot of P2P to save processing power and bandwidth from their end is about it.



Machiavellian on 25 June 2013
J_Allard said:
Machiavellian said:
binary solo said:
Machiavellian said:
psrock said:

I personally talked to both Microsoft and Sony and explained that we need to find a way to have potentially hundreds-of-thousands of dedicated servers at a price point that you can’t get right now. Microsoft realized that player-hosted servers are actually holding back online gaming and that this is something that they could help solve, and ran full-speed with this idea.

 

Did they pass on the Soy consoles because they got a better deal on MS cloud or lets keep waiting for the game in 2015. 

 

BTW, MS is going to make tons of money with this cloud thing. 


Well, if you are building a MP only game and one company gives you their services for pennies and another service you have to build your own.  On PSN, Sony does not run dedicated servers for 3rd party companies.  Those companies would have to either purchase their own or role with someone like Amazon which could be expensive. 

Amazon could be more expensive than Azure because?

I suppose because MS takes a cut of each game sold they can sell Azure capacity to 3rd parties for a bit less. In essence though, if the cloud is just processing capacity for hire then any game on any system can use cloud processing as long as the publisher is willing to pay for it. The real advantage of course is for MS 1st party games given MS doesn't have to pay itself for cloud processing they can make extensive use of it.

Or is Xbox use of Azure going to be largely covered by Gold subs, so 3rd parties don't need to pay at all?

I guess what I'm asking is, other than MS promoting the use of the cloud for gaming, what exactly is special about MS itself having all these server farms as opposed to outsourcing cloud processing?

Not really sure I understand the question.  MS sells services through their cloud which they make a lot of money from.  Because they have this huge infrastructure and probably more processing power to spare, they have decided to give that spare to their Xbox division for developer use.  They are giving it away for free.  A developer big or small does not have to create or purchase from another company like Amazon.  MS datacenters are world wide this allowing developers to host dedicated servers locally to anyone in the world.  

I don't think it's free. It wasn't free for Respawn.


I believe the dedicated server part is not free.  Using Azure for computation work is free. At least thats what MS stated.