The biggest game of the year is PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the multiplayer battle royale sensation on PC that has broken every record in the book. Microsoft has managed to secure timed exclusivity for the console version of the game so far- but it looks like they are doing everything they can to extend that exclusivity as much as they can.
We already know the game uses Rare’s proprietary water technology; now, it turns out, it will also be using Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. This was something Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, confirmed during the company’s most recent financial earning call.
“Gaming pushes the boundaries of hardware and software innovation, with some of the most CPU and GPU-intensive applications and content, giving us a huge opportunity in the cloud”, Microsoft’s CEO told investors. “As one example, PUBG Corp., with the hit game PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, is not only partnering to make Xbox the exclusive console at launch but is also running on Azure.”
Presumably they think the game will help move the Xbox One, and they want to try and incentivize keeping it exclusive to the system as much as possible, and for as long as possible. It will be interesting to see if, presuming PUBG makes the jump to PS4 in the future some time, it will still be using Azure- Titanfall 2 and Hitman both did, even for the PS4 versions, so there is precedence.
PUBG is available on PC now in Early Access, and an Xbox One version is due before the end of the year.