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Microsoft still provides an entire infrastructure for communication and multiplayer games. In any other industry, I suppose the cost of that service would be ro

Microsoft still provides an entire infrastructure for communication and multiplayer games. In any other industry, I suppose the cost of that service would be rolled into the price of the device. But since consoles are often sold for a loss, Sony and Microsoft are likely compelled to charge for whatever add-on services they can.

alpaca128 6y ago
On PC that infrastructure exists as well, for free. For communication you can choose between things like Discord, Teamspeak or maybe just the ingame voice chat. And you don't need to pay for those Battlefield online servers. All while PC games are cheaper than the console versions.
- hobs 6y ago
  Someone does, because you generally cant host them in the client (wrt battlefield) there's plenty of games where that's not a problem, but BF has famously made it harder and harder for private hosters so they can sell those servers.
Someone1234 6y ago
XBox games utilize P2P communications, which means that players are actually providing much of the heavy infrastructure ("game servers") whereas Microsoft is responsible only for match-making/routing. Microsoft has public documentation that describes how it works: > The session host is the console or device that runs the game play simulation for titles built on a host-based peer-to-peer network architecture. This console or device is typically the same as the arbiter, but it does not have to be the same.[0] [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/xbox-live/features/multiplayer/concepts/live-multiplayer-concepts https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/xbox-live/features/m...
- Thaxll 6y ago
  There are less and less p2p usage, most serious games have moved to dedicated servers. And your definitation of heavy is very much incacurate.
  - Someone1234 6y ago
    There's a distinct lack of citations in your self-assured reply. Go ahead and cite all of that.
    - Thaxll 6y ago
      "XBox games utilize P2P communications, which means that players are actually providing much of the heavy infrastructure ("game servers") whereas Microsoft is responsible only for match-making/routing." Just talking about authentication / autorization do you know how much it takes in term of infra at the scale of Xbox? At a high level overview what they provide: - authz / authn / entitlment - rewards - social ( voip, group, friends, chat, profil ) - achievments - store / marketplace - matchmaking - leaderboard - object storage for entities, cloud save game Just open: https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live-status https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live-status As for gameserver the definition is very broad depending on what you do on those gameservers, some of them are heavy other are light depending of what's happening server side ( physics, ai, gameplay replication etc ... )
ripdog 6y ago
The cost of said infrastructure is miniscule compared to the immense profits of just selling the games. Also, consoles are generally only sold at a loss at the beginning of their life cycle, becoming profitable not long after launch as component prices fall. Also, the online services don't provide game servers, these are paid for by the game publishers. Please don't make excuses for the anti-consumer profiteering of gigantic mega-corporations. No PC platform is 'compelled' to require payment for online play, despite many offering a similar or greater level of server to XBL or PSN.
- Thaxll 6y ago
  "The cost of said infrastructure is miniscule" This is so wrong, infra is very expensive for online games. It's that expensive that it's still a question to use dedicated server vs p2p because of cost.
  - ripdog 6y ago
    I mean, sure, game dev in general is very expensive. But in the grand scheme of a game's budget, server infra is a very small part relative to the others. In addition, the per-user cost is miniscule (which is probably what I should have said, considering we're discussion companies which charge per-user for 'server infrastructure'). Obviously P2P has many advantages apart from being free for the publisher - such as lower latency.

alpaca128 6y ago

On PC that infrastructure exists as well, for free. For communication you can choose between things like Discord, Teamspeak or maybe just the ingame voice chat. And you don't need to pay for those Battlefield online servers. All while PC games are cheaper than the console versions.

hobs 6y ago
Someone does, because you generally cant host them in the client (wrt battlefield) there's plenty of games where that's not a problem, but BF has famously made it harder and harder for private hosters so they can sell those servers.

Someone1234 6y ago

XBox games utilize P2P communications, which means that players are actually providing much of the heavy infrastructure ("game servers") whereas Microsoft is responsible only for match-making/routing. Microsoft has public documentation that describes how it works: > The session host is the console or device that runs the game play simulation for titles built on a host-based peer-to-peer network architecture. This console or device is typically the same as the arbiter, but it does not have to be the same.[0] [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/xbox-live/features/multiplayer/concepts/live-multiplayer-concepts https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/xbox-live/features/m...

Thaxll 6y ago
There are less and less p2p usage, most serious games have moved to dedicated servers. And your definitation of heavy is very much incacurate.
- Someone1234 6y ago
  There's a distinct lack of citations in your self-assured reply. Go ahead and cite all of that.
  - Thaxll 6y ago
    "XBox games utilize P2P communications, which means that players are actually providing much of the heavy infrastructure ("game servers") whereas Microsoft is responsible only for match-making/routing." Just talking about authentication / autorization do you know how much it takes in term of infra at the scale of Xbox? At a high level overview what they provide: - authz / authn / entitlment - rewards - social ( voip, group, friends, chat, profil ) - achievments - store / marketplace - matchmaking - leaderboard - object storage for entities, cloud save game Just open: https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live-status https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-live-status As for gameserver the definition is very broad depending on what you do on those gameservers, some of them are heavy other are light depending of what's happening server side ( physics, ai, gameplay replication etc ... )

ripdog 6y ago

The cost of said infrastructure is miniscule compared to the immense profits of just selling the games. Also, consoles are generally only sold at a loss at the beginning of their life cycle, becoming profitable not long after launch as component prices fall. Also, the online services don't provide game servers, these are paid for by the game publishers. Please don't make excuses for the anti-consumer profiteering of gigantic mega-corporations. No PC platform is 'compelled' to require payment for online play, despite many offering a similar or greater level of server to XBL or PSN.

Thaxll 6y ago
"The cost of said infrastructure is miniscule" This is so wrong, infra is very expensive for online games. It's that expensive that it's still a question to use dedicated server vs p2p because of cost.
- ripdog 6y ago
  I mean, sure, game dev in general is very expensive. But in the grand scheme of a game's budget, server infra is a very small part relative to the others. In addition, the per-user cost is miniscule (which is probably what I should have said, considering we're discussion companies which charge per-user for 'server infrastructure'). Obviously P2P has many advantages apart from being free for the publisher - such as lower latency.