The lights are on
Online matchmaking is one place where Microsoft saw potential to do something new with the Xbox One. The console has been designed for multitasking, and the team wanted to find a way to reduce the tedium that can surround online matches. If it works, you may not be spending much more of your time in lobbies.
Chad Gibson, principal group manager of Xbox Live breaks down the current state of matchmaking. "In many cases, it involves a user going to a lobby and entering a matchmaking experience in a game," he says. "Because of the way that Xbox 360 works, you typically sit in a lobby waiting for the players to start your session. That leads to things like player limits on sessions, limited filters, figuring out the right people to put together."
Gibson says the new capabilities of Xbox Live and its hardware architecture will allow for a greater degree of flexibility.
Mike Lavin, Microsoft's senior product manager brings up a great example of a current problem. He likes to play the Xbox Live Arcade game Poker Smash, a hybrid match-three/poker game that came out five years ago. As you might expect from a game that came out five years ago, there's not exactly a thriving online community surrounding the game. That doesn't mean that there aren't people who wouldn't want to play, however. With the Xbox One, players can enter a game's multiplayer mode, enter the parameters for whatever kind of game they'd like to play, and then go do something else – whether that's watching a movie on Netflix or even playing another game. When the match is ready, a message will pop up.
Considering the fickle nature of online gamers and the relatively short lifespan for online multiplayer games, this is good news. While Poker Smash isn't going to benefit from this kind of matchmaking, it bodes well for developers of smaller games that don't have the worlds "of Duty" in their names.
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This does sound pretty good for anyone playing a game past its first few weeks (non-blockbusters at least).
This is the one thing I was happy about from the conference. The feature seems like it'll be awesome.
This could be nice getting into matches with friends but I kind of like having lobbies in between matches for a break, it'll be interesting to see what happens with this.
Wow, that sounds quite useful, now where is the fan boy to come ran on my parade....he's somewhere around here.
This really seems like something games should be coming with by default, in this day and age. There is no excuse for the lackluster matchmaking software we've been dealing with for years, at the very least on PC it shouldn't even be existent at this point. This is the one thing Microsoft is doing right thus far.
Oh really?
This seems like it could be really awesome. I hope it works out!
The story:
Hey, we're patching up the solution to a problem nobody had.
God I hate matchmaking. The root of all problems in modern online gaming.
hehe "of duty"....
Wow. Thats great.
This could prove very beneficial for smaller developers that don't have the resources to invest into matchmaking and servers. Also, it at least shows some appearance of a developer friendly initiative; hopefully this ideal finds its way into other aspects of the console as well.
Yay now I won't be bored when my friends Dick around and take forever setting up custom games.
sounds great