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March 21, 2007
I Xbox Live, but hoW?
This is my confession: I do play video games once in a while. Through the massive global network called Xbox Live, I am able to interact with pimply teenage boys from Sacremento, California to a small village on the bank of the Yangtze River in China (granted the village has an internet connection.)
Xbox Live boasts a membership base of over 2 million users, and the main purpose of the service is to connect gaming citizens to each other, in effect allowing users to compete as if they were sitting next to each other in the same room. Experiences with screaming, cursing 12 year olds abound. Invigorating, I know. So, how does it work?
As you have probably guessed, and Xbox connects to the Xbox Live network through an Ethernet port on the Xbox itself. Any matches played with other players are routed through Xbox live servers, but any content of the actual gameplay (for example, who had the highest score) isn't necessary stored on the server. Many games have their own separate networks for storing game info.
Halo 2 has bungie.net and EA Sports also keeps track of game info. In games such as Halo 2, where many players are playing the same games at once, there is usually one person who "hosts" the game. This means that the person's internet connection creates optimal conditions for gameplay, and so all the information is sent to that person's Xbox and the Xbox either agrees with the info, or rejects it. (Packet Power!) Need more info? Click here.
Posted by kiwesley at March 21, 2007 04:21 PM