One of the major advantages Microsoft has been shouting about with regards to the Xbox One platform was it’s ability to send certain computational processes to the cloud. It’s a claim that some have ridiculed, but games like Forza in particular benefited.
Microsoft’s Azure Centres are largely for use with big business, but they’re also used to host games on the Xbox One platform. One of the main reasons Titanfall had poor online performance here in Australia (before EA and Respawn created their own local servers) was the fact that Australia’s Azure Servers weren’t open locally.
But next week that’s all set to change as Microsoft finally opens its Azure Centres in Sydney and Melbourne. Local partners have been testing the centres for the last month or so, but now they’re going public, meaning that future Xbox One games with online multiplayer — I’m looking at you Halo: Master Chief Collection — will be able to use local servers to host games.
Wicked, those data centres look a whole lot closer to New Zealand than the one in Singapore. Hope we see an improvement too.
Congrats Australia