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Machiavellian said:
ShinmenTakezo said:
Machiavellian said:
ShinmenTakezo said:
My favorite line is, "Not even the most popular gaming houses can afford to run them." Referring to dedicated servers.

Guerrilla
DICE
Insomniac
Zipper
....and plenty others had games with dedicated servers this gen

You need to read the COD thread on this subject.  Having dedicated servers isn't the problem.  Most devs and publishers tell you that its a huge cost to them to run these servers.  The servers have to be up all the time running waiting for players even if the player base isn't large.  

The difference is MS is giving away dedicated servers for next to nothing.  Also a huge advantage to MS solution is that a server doesn't just sit there waiting for players and taking up resources,  Instead it spins up when people start to matchmake in the area.  The next advantage is that the server spins up locally to the people being served, giving players best ping times and data bandwidth.   This is a huge advantage to the system because resources are not wasted and developers/publishers on pay for whats up and running.

I notice people who are very strong with the PS force seem to dismiss these advantages as if Sony can just call up Amazon and bam they will have the same level of service but this will not be the case.  MS spent 3 years building the software side of their service and it is next gen you may say in what it gives to devs/publishers.  

The next thing people dismiss without taking the time to research is MS cloud compute.  MS spent 3 years build this system called Orleans and you can research the tech your self.  Right Now the Halo team at 343 has moved their whole system over to Orleans so we actually might see some benefit from the cloud compute infrastructure sooner than later.  I not sure if MS cloud compute will make the X1 this powerhouse of a machine but I do believe we will see some very obvious advantages to the system that will separate games on the X1 from the PS4


There is no such thing as "MS cloud compute" There is cloud compute, and even your phone can do it. You're digging yourself a hole for absolutely no reason. I made a statement about a small fallacy about big studios not being able to afford dedicated servers when evidence suggests otherwise. You then bring it to a whole nubba lebel. Please don't start trying to feed me MS PR bullshit about the cloud.

Actually there is a MS cloud compute because they have an infrastructure they developed called Orleans.  In other words it's their version of performing, replicating discrete computations in the cloud.  Read up on it, its an interesting article.

No one has ever stated that big studios cannot support dedicated servers, what you did not say is the cost for those studios to pay for those servers.  This is something that has been talked about from developers to publishers for a while.  Its the reason why EA is quick to shut down servers for games where the player base reach a certain level.  Trying to keep those servers up and maintained cost money and if most of these studios are renting from some other company then its more expensive.  Most of the big boys do not want to have to purchase servers or rent them because its a cost.  Having 100 or thousands of servers to serve up dedicated games around the world for millions of games does not make sense for a business that does not gain any money from that venture.  This is why MS solution solves this for the big boys and the small indie.

MS offer a solution not just for the large studios but for all developers on their system.  Now your 5 team indie MP game can stand toe to toe with the big boys.  For the big boys now they have a platform thats takes away a lot of the management, cost and overhead of maintaining servers around the world which only show as an expense or cost not a profit.

Actually you are 100% dead wrong. Cloud compute is cloud compute is cloud compute. MS doesn't have anything special dealing with cloud compute. You are drinking the juice.

The OP suggested big studios didn't use dedicated servers because of costs. I said otherwise. I am right of course. I don't need to post numbers to be right on that point. No one is arguing that dedicated servers aren't expensive. I wouldn't argue about that because I have done zero research into the costs of dedicated servers.