These are still theoretical arguments at this point though, having a preferred platform is totally fine, but I personally don’t see how investment in cloud infrastructure geared towards mp is evidence of Microsoft caring more about gamers than Sony, bottom line they are both companies, offering similar yet varied consoles, MS just happens to be investing in an area that you personally like….I hope ms cloud is as great as it could possibly be, I’m personally more interested in future game streaming functionality personally

I’m not going to argue with your opinion. You own your opinion and your feelings. I was addressing facts about one aspect of the “console war” that Microsoft seemingly has the advantage on. I am uncommitted to either console. I just want the console that is going to provide me the greatest opportunity to compete against the best talent. Right now Microsoft seems to be in position to provide the better online experience but if Sony steps up their game, I’ll have no problem giving them credit as well.

From PC to 360 to PS4, we have all experienced the same inadequacies in multiplayer gaming. It just so happens that Microsoft might actually being demonstrating they are proactive in trying to limit the inadequacies and are putting their money where their mouth is by investing heavily in this kind of server infrastructure. I was waiting for Gamescom to see how both Microsoft and Sony addressed this issue that should be a serious matter for hardcore/competitive gamers around the world. And while neither addressed it directly, there were implications from the COD Ghosts announcement. Now I personally could **care less** about Call of Duty. But the implications are astounding. It is direct proof of the kind of server infrastructure in place from Microsoft that will allow games like Call of Duty to be hosted on dedicated servers. Not only is it the physical infrastructure in place that they own that is impressive, but it shows the great deals they can provide to developers and publishers.

There is a reason why Activision never wanted to pay for dedicated servers. And there is a reason why many servers were turned off by EA/Dice when it comes to Battlefield. With the amount of people playing these games, the cost can be a true burden. But with Microsoft’s infrastructure in place, owned and controlled by them and not a third-party, then they can lessen the burden and provide a better opportunity to developers and publishers.

A partnership is a partnership. Its not owning the infrastructure. That is a big difference. Sony is in essence saying that they will utilize OpenStack servers when warranted but they actually don’t own the servers. Thats like saying I own 500 servers and you make an agreement with me to rent out 300. Its a big difference between owning them and partnering with someone. When you own the infrastructure you can decide to do whatever you want to. When you are in an agreement with a 3rd party then you can’t do whatever you want to. You answer to the company that owns the servers.

Microsoft in essence can allow developers to utilize their server infrastructure for free or pennies on the dollar. Sony cannot from a business perspective since they are utilizing an outside source. They are going to be charging the normal going rate for hosting services.

As mentioned in my earlier post, Microsoft has been building an infrastructure for a long time now for reasons like Office and other business solutions. Sony can’t just get their own infrastructure in the blink of an eye. Partnering with a 3rd party just shows that Sony wants to take a shortcut and do it on the cheap. If Sony truly wants to compete in this domain, then they need to invest billions of dollars in creating an infrastructure that spans the globe. You can’t have servers in one general location and not another region or the whole cloud utilization turns to crap.

First Sony supporters mentioned Gaikai as Sony’s response. Completely different as Gaikai is for streaming games. Now people mention RackSpace. Do you not understand the difference between owning an infrastructure and making an agreement with an outside party? Sony could have partnered with Amazon to get a deal on servers when necessary. That doesn’t mean anything. They are a business. A business that is not going to simply rent out servers and give it away on the cheap to take a massive profit loss.

I am uncommitted to either console. I want the console that is going to provide me the best opportunity to compete against the greatest talent. But right now, if there is one thing Microsoft and XBox One have the advantage on, its the ability for their massive server infrastructure in place to spin up servers around the world. Go listen to Respawn and other companies that have said, “we wouldn’t be able to create the game we envisioned without an infrastructure in place like this.”

And leave the DRM stuff out of an article like this. Thats like me bringing up the fact that Sony was testing the ability to put RFID chips in discs to help combat piracy and track their inventory. They had the patent to do so. Look it up from January.

Multiplayer gamers do not represent all of gaming as a whole…i never play any mp outside of split screen couch co op, i like single player games, and Sony has always supported that much better than Microsoft ever has…If you are suggesting that Microsoft invested billions “for the gamer” and not for the potential profit, you are insane…bottom line is they are both companies out to turn a profit, multiplayer is the quickest way to that profit, by charging you a monthly fee to access it….Microsoft has also in the past totally neglected most foreign markets, and while they are making some strides to change that, they are still selling a more expensive box chock full of features that will only be accessible in a handful of markets, including kinect voice functionality and all of the tv stuff…Sony has been in the gaming business longer, and as a result have for more truly classic gaming experiences, coupled w/ a high quality stable of first party developers and exclusives, whereas ms have a history of throwing out money for timed exclusives for third party games instead of creating something genuinely new….both companies have their pros and their cons, but to use multiplayer games as the standard as to which all games should be measured is an inherently flawed argument…guys like me that enjoy story driven single player games are at this point much better served w/ the ps4, between the amount of exclusives at launch window and to be announced holdovers from previous generations, as well as streaming services like netflix not being behind a paywall, combined w/ the lack of forced peripherals like kinect, it’s fairly obvious which one is a better deal for single player gamers….as far as multiplayer and online experiences go, ms shined in that arena in the current gen, but for all the talk done about the cloud and it’s potential, we have still yet to see which system is the better of the two when it comes to that…if Microsoft was such a goodwill company supporting gamers so staunchly, they wouldn’t have shipped a broken console last gen that forced the monthly online fee on everyone that wanted to utilize any other features of the console

Sony has partnered with RackSpace one of the largest Cloud DataCenters in the world. OpenStack Cloud services (same kind of tech as Microsoft Azure or Amazon EC2) for this exact reason.

Source:
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/rackspace-to-help-sony-playstation-deploy-openstack-private-cloud

Additionally Microsoft didn’t invest billions for the XBOX division, they invested billions to bring their Office product line to a Software as a Service (SAAS) and charge a license fee (more money for Microsoft, less control for you the client – sound familiar to their original DRM idea?).

Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into building a server infrastructure that spans the globe. It doesn’t matter if you are in Canada, the US, South America, Europe, Australia, Japan, etc. If Sony wants to developers to be able to utilize the cloud and for most multiplayer games to have dedicated servers then they are going to need to invest billions as well. Want to know the cost of just one server farm? Take a look at Iowa or Virginia in the US. Microsoft poured in 700 and 800 million respectively to increase their server infrastructure. Now just imagine these server farms cropping up around the world and what the cost is. Microsoft has had a head start in making sure that most areas of the globe are covered by the infrastructure since they have catered to business for a while. Sony has lots of work to do.