End of day 1 server crashes? The gaming world is littered with instances of servers going down on the launch of a big game, but PlayFab Multiplayer Servers is here to change things.
It is a new Azure based service that Microsoft has unveiled today.
The noble idea being allowing game developers access to dynamic and on-demand scaling of multiplayer servers for their games. Companies only need to pay for server resources that are actually in use, plus a little extra for standby capacity and they are good to go.
You may recall that Microsoft bought the Seattle based PlayFab earlier this year, as it sought to expand the gaming reach of Azure.
The solution ran on top of AWS at the time of purchase — and some of its parts still do. But Microsoft has more or less moved it to Azure ahead of the release of preview today.
And it has built up all the cloud powered infrastructure needed for games of today, including matchmaking, leaderboards, server hosting, player identity and profile management, as well as commerce.
Basically, the company wants to take care of all the server-side work for developers, allowing them the freedom to focus on their games.
On top of that, the Redmond based company wants PlayFab to be a solution for every platform. This is a platform agnostic service and SDKs are offered for Windows, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, iOS and Android.
Azure is at ease with offering scalable servers for a number of popular AAA titles, including games like Forza Horizon 4, Sea of Thieves and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, which are all hosted on Microsoft’s cloud.
But with this service, it wants to eliminate the effects of huge spikes in demand for these companies when their game launch of becomes a surprise hit all of a sudden.
And the fact that Microsoft has more datacenters spread in more parts of the world than Amazon or Google means that Azure servers should be closer to where players are — essentially lowering latency and offer gamers a better gaming experience.
More details are available here.
Including pricing information and a free tier for those that want to take this new service for a spin.