This is a good gesture by MS. It will definitely help developers if they do not have to pay for server costs while developing. Not sure how much it applies to indies, but it seems like they are talking about all developers.

From Major Nelson's website (http://majornelson.com/2013/10/17/xbox-is-providing-free-dedicated-server-hosting-to-our-xbox-one-development-community/):

Great news for Xbox One developers as they’ll have free access to our top rated Microsoft Azure service:

Our intent was to enable developers to take advantage of server resources in their games without having to deal with the challenges that come with building, managing and running servers at scale. So, we chose to provide cloud features that allow the game creators to push the limits of their gameplay experiences and apply the bulk of their investments to game creation, rather than server and operational resources. In fact, we even give them the cloud computing power for FREE so they can more easily transition to building games on Xbox One for the cloud.

(Please delete if already posted)

I want to see how devs are going to respond to more cloud integration in gaming.

This is dup... posted weeks ago I guess.

The weird think is that even with free servers for Xbone the devs are not using it.

CoD will use Activision servers.
Battlefield 4 will use EA servers.

Some for others... all big third-party are using their own servers... the exceptions (I guess) are Titanfall, Ryse and Sunset Overdrive.

This is very good. Like BizTalk or any kind of MSDN subscriptions, Microsoft is offering free credits (basically you can use the equivalent of 3 vCPUs from Azure per months) and then a discounted rate for any additional cost.

I'm using this personally while developing for Azure and I have no doubt it will be great for developers out there so they can try out Azure and see what it can offer to them :)

@ ethomaz: I guess it's easier for a big company to have their own servers which they can use for all their games...But this is server access for development they are talking about here...So I'm sure it will be useful for smaller developers who don't want to have to pay for servers during development. they can just use MS servers

Ohhhh that makes sense

MS is really stepping it up this gen. I'd almost support them if I didn't know how much they'd harm the industry if they ever gained dominance.

CoD is using MS servers. This was announced ages ago, where have you been?

Battlefield SHOULD use MS servers since EA servers always seem to suck ass...

What other big 3rd party devs have you seen announced to use their own servers instead of MS because I don't think anyone else has announced anything and you are making false assumptions as fact. Also you are wrong about CoD which I thought was common knowledge. Makes it harder to believe you.

I really have a hard time believing in anything he posts, Seems more misinformation then anything of use.

False for both.

Battlefield 4: http://www.gamepur.com/news/12495-battlefield-4-wont-use-xbox-ones-compute-cloud-servers-day-one-confirms-dic.html

Call of Duty: Ghosts: http://www.vg247.com/2013/10/07/call-of-duty-ghosts-to-have-dedicated-servers-on-all-platforms/

The Call of Duty case they confirmed the same servers for all plataforms but the producer can't say the word PS4 because a deal with MS but he confirmed via twitter.

No multiplataform is using MS servers... sorry.