
Roughly one decade ago, game consoles were the next big thing. As technology improved and people shifted into a more on-the-go mentality, the gaming sphere lost its momentum. The situation further deteriorated as console prices rose. There is not nearly as much hype in this industry as there was just a few years back other than from the gaming world itself. However, in an overnight move, Microsoft has expanded its reach by announcing unlimited cloud storage on its next generation game console (Xbox One), scheduled to be released in November 2013.
Microsoft also noted that Xbox One users will no longer need Xbox Live Gold membership. The next generation game consoles internal hard drive already has 500GB of storage on it. Any additional saved games can now be stored in the cloud for free. This will be an impressive upgrade from the current cloud system of saving games directly to Microsoft’s servers (512MB limit), as this option also does not allow users to save profiles and game saves to the internal hard disk for Xbox 360 users. Moreover, users will now have the ability to stream any saved game from any console directly from the cloud.
As per a Microsoft spokesperson, “Xbox Live offers Xbox One unlimited storage space in the cloud for all Xbox Live members to store numerous types of Xbox Live content, including your profile, games, Achievements and entertainment. This content is stored and saved in the cloud so you can automatically access it anywhere, anytime, no matter where you are.”
Microsoft had previously stated that the Xbox Live network would be central to boosting global server accessibility – a worldwide system of over 1 million servers in its data center. This looks as if Microsoft is setting another standard in terms of competing with major online cloud service providers such as Google’s Drive and Apple’s iCloud.