Respawn’s TitanFall is – PC aside – exclusive to Xbox consoles. That means the game will appear on Xbox 360 and Xbox One, but won’t appear on PlayStation 3 or 4.
Why? Well, it’s apparently because of the cloud system that Microsoft has been so hotly touting – despite there being no such flexibility for the 360 and Sony themselves claiming that the PS4 can use cloud computing if needed.
The game was initially intended for all platforms, according to a recent interview [via], but Microsoft’s extensive server farms allowed the developers “to think of the game a little differently” with Vince Zampella saying it was “the perfect solution”.
TitanFall is Respawn’s first game.
ABlokeCalledDaz
So if your game relies on the cloud to play/compute/move stuff round (forgetting any 24 hour checks for DRM) and your internet connection for some reason stop working (or more likely router) what effect will this have on your single player game. Will you suddenly end up playing something looking like a PS1 game because all the processing power of the almighty ‘cloud’ has gone or will it just start to slow down and be a pain to play..
See what I did there
As a great man once said. “I’m getting too old for this s…!” so apologies if I’ve made no sense at all and thanks to Kris for explaining it.
simplebob
and also can you play the game offline at all if Cloud is a requirement? If you have to have internet connection to play single player due to cloud use then it will go against the recent “online check once every 24hrs” in order to play. Wouldn’t be a contradiction MS will want to have against one of its leading exclusives.
FluBBa
In this case they use the cloud as a dedicated server (since the game is only multiplayer) and they also run the bot-ai there. Makes sense here, though I will be surprised if it’s going to used for anything cooler than that.
plutoniumdragon
Clearly it’s far too early to tell yet, but if Microsoft’s Azure approach does prove to be popular enough then the next gen along is going to be the streaming box some expected for this (next) gen.
Could, instead of what is currently looking to be a bit of a commercial failure, actually end up being a surprisingly brilliant move a couple of years down the line and the inevitable step toward what everyone was expecting anyway?
Eternal_Bcb
You have a valid point there and I expect this is what MS are thinking. But I think Sony has all bases covered with GaiKai in the background and by far the superior console to start with. If they can bring it all together then things look positive for the future.
Jim Hargreaves
Really looking forward to this. Will have to give my PC a little sprucing up but should be worth it.
plutoniumdragon
Ah, but if the PC version is going be using Azure as well, then you may not need to…
stage1
Everyone has ‘the cloud’. This makes no sense.
Anyway I might pick this up a year after it launches as it will not doubt be available on PS4.
Matthijs
Four reasons not to care:
1) look almost last gen to me?
2) who has time with destiny coming our way
3) more of the same?
4) developers lying about cloud power, which is a fancy word for bunch of servers (yes, I am a senior IT specialist) does not run well for me
JBoo
Sounds like more ‘Pie in the SKY’ from MS & their Loyal backers LoL:D
Eternal_Bcb
The game had some interesting aspects but wasn’t overly excited by this. MS obviously coughed up some cash for this as they expect it to be another CoD I reckon. But yes, Destiny looks far more exciting as a title overall.
KippDynamite
So the PS4 is capable of maximum bandwidth of 176 GB/s.
The Xbox One is cabable of 68.3 GB/s.
Now I’m not a tech guy, but even a fully-functional 100Mb internet connection wouldn’t do much to close that gap. Sounds like a bunch of crap to me . . .
yogh_wayne
Translation: MS has a lot of servers (aka “The Cloud”) that we can use as dedicated servers for multiplayer and don’t have to set up, maintain and finance ourselves. It was “the perfect solution”.
Phizzy
Are people excited about this one? It just seemed like another dull, generic FPS to me.