We’re expecting to be doing some gaming over the break, and if you are too and are an Xbox One owner, less lag could be the best present you’ll receive.
Xbox One gamers should expect a little more speed in their online gaming this year as Microsoft has finally delivered local servers for multiplayer games.
The servers will run from local data centres, and will allow Aussie gamers to experience titles like “Titanfall”, “Sunset Overdrive”, “Forza 5”, “Forza Horizon 2”, and “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” with much less lag or slowdowns than they might find connecting to overseas servers, which previously were one of the only ways to play their games online.
“It has been a very exciting year for both Xbox and the industry,” said Jeremy Hinton, Business Group Lead for Interactive Entertainment at Microsoft in Australia, adding that “we set out to deliver amazing experiences on the Xbox One platform, and are humbled by the support and positive response from Aussie gamers to the updates over the past 12 months.
“Today’s announcement of Australian based Xbox Live servers addresses the most requested feature from local gamers,” said Hinton.
“We are excited to give our fans the best online gaming experience available, just in time for the Holidays.”
The new servers will switch Australian gamers from the reliance of international servers to something a little closer to home, meaning less drop-outs, better ping time, and a more reliable online gaming experience altogether.
As for why it has taken this long to get the servers up, a spokesperson for Microsoft told GadgetGuy “we wanted to ensure that we had the right services in place for our market, which can often be very specific.”
“It can take a considerable amount of time to prepare the extensive infrastructure needed, and as such, this is a project that has been many years in the making,” said the spokesperson for Microsoft.
While it has certainly taken some time, we’re sure gamers will be pleased to know that local servers are ready to take a beating from their gaming needs, and while Microsoft won’t quite tell us how many concurrent gamers the new machines will serve, we suspect Aussie gamers will have a little better time online than they’d have previously had without the new servers.
