Jonathan Blow Calls Microsoft Out on 300k Server Claims; Windows Azure Likely

You may know Jonathan Blow as the developer of indie hit Braid and the upcoming puzzle title The Witness. You may think he’d have more of a bone to pick over Microsoft’s no self-publishing policy for indie developers, but he has been more riled up this weekend over the claim that the Xbox One will utilize over 300,000 servers.

To compare numbers, the Xbox 360 currently uses approximately 15,000 servers. Microsoft’s claim of 300,000 servers being used to power the user experience of the Xbox One does seem steep indeed.

More cloud processing BS: joystiq.com/2013/05/24/rep… Someone please call their bluff on this.

— Jonathan Blow (@Jonathan_Blow) May 25, 2013

@stestagg I can spin up 10000 virtual servers per host. They would just all suck. Saying 300k when they are virtual is a lie.

— Jonathan Blow (@Jonathan_Blow) May 25, 2013

If one really stops to think of the amount of space and power 300,000 servers would take up and consume, it does seem a bit implausible that all of them would be real dedicated servers as opposed to virtual servers. Virtual servers are an easy method of number inflation (as seen in “300,000” servers), but offer no benefits or computational improvements in the cloud computing environment that Microsoft is looking to push.

The cloud platform the Xbox One will likely be using is Windows Azure, which advertises “unlimited servers” on its official site. It does mention there are multiple datacenters worldwide – are the 300k servers mentioned in reference to the Xbox One in fact Azure? And if so, how could could Microsoft actually have that many physical servers available? Furthermore, would the system using Azure be a truly dedicated server infrastructure?

Blow’s comments over the weekend reassure me that my being overly critical isn’t unwarranted. There are too many questions left unanswered, and so many fuzzy announcements that not even those with Microsoft know the true answers to the questions everyone is asking. That, or they simply don’t want to answer the difficult questions the gaming community is posing. Neither option is good news for the consumer.