Every Xbox One developer gets free dedicated servers

Microsoft has confirmed that every developer making and publishing games on the Xbox One will get access to the Microsoft Azure cloud processing platform for free.

Albert Penello, Microsoft Director of Product Planning for Xbox, confirmed on the NeoGAF forums that Xbox One developers get free access to dedicated servers, cloud processing and unlimited storage for game saves for free.

“Also to be clear. One of the benefits of publishing games on Xbox One – ALL game developers get Dedicated Servers, Cloud Processing, and “storage” (for save games) free. If you want to do dedicated servers on other platforms, you have to prop them yourself. But on Xbox One, while developers can choose to use their own methods, we make it available to everyone. We do not charge developers for Dedicated Servers,” says Penello.

This is a similar offering to what developers on the Xbox 360 platform currently enjoy, but with the difference that some of the features for the Xbox One are available without having to purchase an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

Without Gold, users will still be able to take advantage of cloud processing and sync up their accounts on multiple consoles, allowing them the same user experience across any Xbox One they play on. Its not clear if non-Gold members will be able to save their games online.

Penello’s post on NeoGAF also noted that Microsoft was actively trying to stymie any possible failure in getting the message across to their customers and fans, changing their direction in their marketing to things the console could do to benefit gamers on launch.

“One of the requirements I had for doing this video is I wanted to speak accurately and factually. I wanted to tie all of this back to actual features. I talked about the tangible benefits of “the cloud”: Save games, roaming profiles, content re-download. I talked about the future-stated benefits of cloud rendering, and never made any outrageous claims about it. When I talked about Smartglass, I talked about real features, and game implementation,” he added.