JayWood2010 said: JoeTheBro said: bananaking21 said: can their be a td:dr version? In the future it might be used for something, but right now for Microsoft it's just functioning as dedicated servers. The same thing most big games have had for years. Kind of but not exactly.  Have you ever heard of games having issues with their servers on day one?  Example being Battlefield 4....But yes, you are largely right, they are acting as dedicated servers the moment. "With the Xbox Live Cloud, we don’t have to worry about estimating how many servers we’ll need on launch day. We don’t have to find ISPs all over the globe and rent servers from each one. We don’t have to maintain the servers or copy new builds to every server. That lets us focus on things that make our game more fun. And best yet, Microsoft has datacenters all over the world, so everyone playing our game should have a consistent, low latency connection to their local datacenter.   Most importantly to us, Microsoft priced it so that it’s far more affordable than other hosting options – their goal here is to get more awesome games, not to nickel-and-dime developers. So because of this, dedicated servers are much more of a realistic option for developers who don’t want to make compromises on their player experience, and it opens up a lot more things that we can do in an online game."

It's a tl:dr lol. Of course it's going to miss some of the smaller things. Plus the cloud is far from magical. It doesn't fix things like with BF4, just makes it cheaper for the devs. Also for a while now lots of dedicated servers have been done in the cloud. Who'se to say bf4 wasn't already using it?

An odd statement to leave out Sony, when Sony launched the PS3 with 40 player Resistance that obviously had dedicated servers to run such high player counts.

BF4 didnt use Microsoft's servers.  They are running their own servers.  

Microsoft isn't the only company with a cloud ;)

Ohhh i see what youre saying lol.  I have no idea what EA runs, so I wont comment about their servers as it will only be uninformed on my part :)

What i dont understand about the whole cloud thing was why the heck was MS using cloud as a marketing point for the Xbox One?

The very nature of cloud processing separates it from any local hardware. The 360 will benefit as much from cloud processing as the Xbox One...yet MS never stated it that way. They really should have because that way it would be a marketing point for their entire ecosystem and not just the Xbox One.

All the confusion around "the cloud" is a direct result of MS and the way they used it to market the One. I mean really the concept of cloud computing is really simple, its something you will learn about at school or in your first year of university if you do an IT course.

I completely understand Respawns response here and Ethomez's similar response.

The bad part is that they haven't clearly explained what Microsofts Azure service is going to do that others have done in the past with dedicated servers.

Prob to sell the Xbox One.  It is true that Azure is a great service and far ahead of many other cloud servers.  That much is true, but yeah there has been a lot of confusion about it and it is partially MSFT to blame.  But its a business, they need ways to sell their products and this is one.

I do believe that in the future they could do some cloud computing if they wanted.....Maybe.  That would be interesting to see.  Good news is, XBL will have very stable online gameplay though.  Not sure if anybody is gears fans or not, but would have loved to seen it have one of these servers instead of what we got lol

bananaking21 said: can their be a tl:dr version?

Sure! At it's very core, "the cloud" is just a new marketing buzzword for saying "dedicated servers".

Microsoft's Azure cloud pretty much just makes the process of providing dedicated servers easier for the publisher; for the gamer/end customer, there is no real advantage/difference, which is why there is so much confusion, because the actual gamers do not observe any difference.

So, It's a bit like Raider now being called Twix.

ArnoldRimmer said: bananaking21 said: can their be a tl:dr version? Sure! At it's very core, "the cloud" is just a new marketing buzzword for saying "dedicated servers". Microsoft's Azure cloud pretty much just makes the process of providing dedicated servers easier for the publisher; for the gamer/end customer, there is no real advantage/difference, which is why there is so much confusion, because the actual gamers do not observe any difference. So, It's a bit like Raider now being called Twix.

I wouldnt go that far, there is advantages to using cloud based servers as Respawn mentioned.  And what makes things easier for the devs makes things better for the gamers.  You should be happy for the devs that they have an easier process to go through, and hopefully it will fix a lot of the day one issues we saw last gen.  Though that is to be determined at this moment.