Xbox One Cloud Updates May Force Mid-Game Reboot

Microsoft has announced the Xbox One will require cloud updates on a regular basis, which could lead to the servers rebooting without warning.

That's according to Xbox Live lead program manager John Bruno, who made the revelation during a presentation at GDC Next yesterday (via IGameReponsibly). Bruno explained that while work has been done to try and prevent the Xbox Live Compute servers rebooting in the middle of a game, Microsoft hasn't managed to eliminate the issue entirely.

"Once in a while, rather frequently actually, the host OS will require an update, meaning the physical machine is going to get rebooted whether your code is running or not," he explained. "That’s a problematic thing for a game, and oftentimes it's in the middle of a multiplayer session. We’ve worked very hard to overcome that, but that’s not to say it’s going to be a reality in every case."

“

That’s a problematic thing for a game.

The team behind Titanfall has previously spoken about how dependent the game will be on the Xbox One's cloud capabilities. The implication here, therefore, is that whenever the servers need to be updated or rebooted, the game will be unavailable. When asked by IGameResponsibly about how Titanfall would navigate these issues, Bruno issued the following response:

"I can’t answer that. I don’t know what the guys over at Titanfall have built into their game. It’s up to the game developer. If they want to rely more on our XBLC service, we’re happy to support that. We do provide a platform for them to persist data, but that’s up to the developer to utilize that."

It's possible, then, that the cloud may have a weekly maintenance period to try and avoid issues, scheduled during a convenient time for most gamers, such as in the early hours of Wednesday morning like many MMOs. We've reached out to Microsoft to see if there are any such plans in the pipeline and ask what happens if an emergency maintenance is needed, and will update the story as soon as we hear back.

If your 'cloud' can't handle needing to bounce a host without disconnecting users, it's not a cloud it's a bunch of servers.

If your 'cloud' can't handle needing to bounce a host without disconnecting users, it's not a cloud it's a bunch of servers.

And it's not as if Microsoft are the first people to come across this problem. Doing updates on live servers without affecting connected clients is hardly cutting-edge, never-seen-before stuff.

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here but I still look at some N64 games and think they look good.

Due to a retail partner’s system issue, a very small number of Xbox One consoles were shipped to consumers before the 11/22 street date. We’re pleased to see the initial response to Xbox One has been so positive, but given we are still putting the finishing touches on our games, UI and online services, as well as confidential partner and media agreements, these consoles units will be restricted from connecting to Xbox Live until closer to our launch date.

50 GB install?????

50 GB install?????

Same for PC too, I believe.

"The Xbox One user interface is fast, taking just 17 seconds from power up to the dashboard"

In what world is 17 seconds fast?

Isn't that also anachronistic since now SSD's are becoming the standard?

SSDs, which are optimal for gaming from a load time perspective, are extremely expensive. It's not uncommon for people to have a 64gb, 128gb or 256gb SSD just for playing games on. 50gb wouldn't be too much of a problem (as far as storage space is concerned) for anyone with a standard HDD (which are now pretty cheap for several terabyte drives), but it's likely to take up a massive chunk of space for anyone with an SSD, and unless it's doing anything particularly different to the other COD games, I can't fathom what it needs all that space for.

Okay, but it's not like developers are going to somehow limit the install size of their games, or even alter their behaviour in the slightest, just because some people are using a more expensive drive technology presumably.

Remember that COD Ghosts fits on a 4.7gb DVD for the Xbox 360 version

I agree with the rest of your comment but FYI COD Ghosts on the 360 is on two disks

I thought we were talking about BF4. The next-gen version of coddy woddy ghosties clocks in at 35GB.

Ah, thanks for the correction. I don't think this was the case with all the previous ones, was it?

50gb is still a lot more than 4.7x2.

Don't forget compression.

Why ? - they obviously did :-)

TV! TV! TV!

Now coming summer 2014

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... ummer-2014

Xbox is detracting from Microsoft’s business focus, says co-founder’s business partner

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has said he is both “intrigued and interested” by incoming changes at the company, amid its search for a new CEO. His investment partner has revealed that Allen feels Xbox and Bing detract from the core business, following rumours that former Nokia boss Stephen Elop is prepared to trim some fat.

It follows word that – if brought in as Steve Ballmer’s replacement as CEO – Elop would be prepared to cut the Xbox brand free if it either becomes unsuccessful or mis-aligned with the company’s focus.

Speaking with the Financial Times, Allen’s investment partner Paul Ghaffari, said that Allen shared Elop’s rumoured view. It has been suggested that Elop would want to focus on Microsoft’s core products, such as Office on non-Microsoft devices and other integral parts of the company.

Ghaffari told the paper, “The search business and even Xbox, which has been a very successful product, are detracting from that. We would want them to focus on their best competencies. My view is there are some parts of that operation they should probably spin out, get rid of, to focus on the enterprise and focus on the cloud.”

There's really nothing in either of the launch line-ups that I'm interested in I don't think, which is fine as it gives me time to close the previous gen off.

I don't understand Twitch.tv. Why would you want to watch someone playing a game rather than look at it sit on a shelf instead?

I'll have you know I've actually been playing games the past few nights. They are all on the 3DO and mostly rubbish but still... At least I've been playing something.

I don't understand Twitch.tv. Why would you want to watch someone playing a game rather than play it yourself?

There are some great ideas here, then, but we've had just a small glimpse of what the machine is capable of. Cool functions like resuming gameplay from standby are flaky, while the centrepiece of the media experience - full integration with live TV - just isn't there yet outside of Microsoft's home market. It's coming, but we have no idea when. The core of what's left, beyond some neat features, is very much a games machine: one whose capabilities are proven, but which remains considerably more expensive than PlayStation 4.

I don't understand Twitch.tv. Why would you want to watch someone playing a game rather than play it yourself?