Xbox One Cloud Services

 

Microsoft has been touting their new cloud services for the Xbox One, and the company plans to have the service available in all all markets. Microsoft plans to have all of their data centers setup around the world, and they don’t want to have a service that’s just for certain countries.

“Microsoft has data centres around the world, so Cloud Compute Services are not something that you should think about on a country-by-country basis,” Microsoft’s Jeff Henshaw told Ausgamers during a Q&A session at E3.“We have deployed our data centres geographically so that they can service the load for categories of countries all around the world. So we have some of the best reach of any other company on the planet to be able to make sure that the Cloud Services that we offer are what we consider [to be] ubiquitous and will be available [to] all markets.”

It’ll be interesting to see where Microsoft actually sets up their data centers, it’ll definitely impact the ping times in different areas. If you don’t have a strong enough internet connection, you’re probably going to be out of luck. Microsoft confirmed that you will need to have an internet connection in order to play your games, and it really hasn’t gone over very well with their consumers. 

Consider this the last straw in me never buying an Xbox One. It’s not that I feel bitter about any of these policies Microsoft has been cramming at us, but it’s just that the thing might not even work where I live. Of the 21 countries that will support the Xbox One, Japan will not be one of them, at least for quite some time.

The Xbox Support Twitter page has stated in responding to questions from posters that the Xbox One “would not have the full experience” in unsupported countries.Not to worry about traveling abroad, though, because you can still play your Xbox One when you come home, as the Xbox Support page puts it.Only problem for me is that abroad is home. If they insist I play my Xbox One only when I head home to visit the folks, I might get a week or two of playing my $500 machine once a year. The problem with a totally digital future is how easy it will become to lock out complete regions of the Earth.

What about our soldiers abroad, Will they no longer have “the full experience?” No more importing rare and fun Japanese games. Lost gems and Holy Grails will become a thing of the past.What if the Xbox One finally becomes available in Japan, but I get locked out from trying to play American games through it since my IP address won’t match the country I want to buy games from? Xbox Support says the best option is to wait for the Xbox One to become available in the region, but will playing a console abroad even be possible.



It’s totally possible Microsoft will want me to pay upwards of $90 for a video game not even in my native language, because that’s what video games cost out here. Steam already blocks me from major Japanese publishers like SEGA and Capcom, and I can’t even access the American Origin site. What’s to say Xbox Live will be any different.

Microsoft’s message to ex-pats is to simply move back home if you want to play their machine.Not that it matters. I’ll already be enjoying my Wii U and PlayStation 4 restriction free, as confirmed by Sony, by the time Japan finally gets the Xbox One. Sorry, but this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’m not dropping $500 on something that “might not work.” No way, no how.

We're doing that flat out so that any game developer can assume that there's roughly three times the resources immediately available to their game, so they can build bigger, persistent levels that are more inclusive for players. They can do that out of the game." Henshaw continued.

So, what does this mean for game developers? For one, it means that games can have a more extensive online UI, or maybe when you purchase a game, you can add the game's soundtrack to your personal cloud storage. It will most definitely allow users to store their capture gameplay video and maybe even streaming of those videos to personal web pages. All of that is speculation on my part though, and we will have to wait for more information before more is known.