At E3, AusGamers sat in on an "Xbox One 101" session outlining some of the engineering feats the team at Redmond has been able to get out of the console and its cloud service.

During a Q&A at the end though, we asked just what their ambitious Cloud system would mean for the geographically and infrastructure-challenged, like Australia and New Zealand.

"Microsoft has data centres around the world, so Cloud Compute Services are not something that you should think about on a country-by-country basis," explained incubation and prototyping group manager, Jeff Henshaw. "We have deployed our data centres geographically so that they can service the load for categories of countries all around the world.

"So we have some of the best reach of any other company on the planet to be able to make sure that the Cloud Services that we offer are what we consider [to be] ubiquitous and will be available [to] all markets."

It still sounds a bit too good to be true, but the term "ubiquitous" does have us intrigued.

No Asia Xbox One launch has me worried. Same with PS4's Gaikai. Great features ... if you're in Europe or North America. But we're a pretty small market so can't really expect it.

Microsoft's cloud service Azure has a local Australian data centre now so it seems safe to assume that they will actually have local, low-latency services available for Australians. Woot.

For any company that wants to create global cloud services, is there like a map or chart or formula that if given X number of servers, where should those server go in the world?
Obviously you'd tweak it depending on where your users are, but just as a general guide?

Microsoft's cloud service Azure has a local Australian data centre now

Is it coming soon? I still only have "southeast asia" as the closest location in my management console which is singapore iirc.

Is it coming soon? I still only have "southeast asia" as the closest location in my management console which is singapore iirc.

I thought it was open for business but maybe it is still pending - not 100% sure, I will ask some peeps

Yeah Trog's right.

The day before Xbox One was announced, MS made a tiny announcement about the expansion of Azure into Australia. Though the reasons at the time were for business-related cloud-computing and made no mention of XB1, it made sense when, during the launch, MS stated they were scaling up the server base (15k servers now for the 360, to 300k for XB1).

Then again, the XB1 will be more server-reliant. It'll be interesting to see how developers will use cloud services in games, and whether the servers will hold up to the demand (regardless of where they are located).

This is Microsoft PR at it's best. Did anyone (including Ausgamers) notice that they didn't specifically say "Yes there will be infrastructure in place in multiple locations around the world, including Australia". He just said the first part of that, so he didn't confirm that Australia will have dedicated servers and how many.

Is it coming soon? I still only have "southeast asia" as the closest location in my management console which is singapore iirc.

Yeh it's still 'coming soon'. No ETA just yet, but I can't imagine they're sitting around - they know the longer they wait the more likely it is people will just go to AWS :)

Isn't there something floating about where microsoft say if you aren't in one of the 21 US states that is enabled for Xbox one on day one then you should buy a 360 instead?

If they limit american's to 'only enabled states', what chance do aussies outside of Sydney and Melbourne have?

Did i read this here?

Anyway, Microsoft Confirms Xbox One Will Only Work in 21 States in the US at Launch.

I think you'll find its 21 countries not 21 states.

so I got fooled by a fake news site. That's the problem with social media -> i am stupid.

Good to hear trog. AWS needs some competition.

Edit: also with my msdn subscription i get some azure credit to play with

I thought it was open for business but maybe it is still pending - not 100% sure, I will ask some peeps

Yeah, its coming soon. I asked Dean at the Azure meetup group, he doesn know any more either.

This is Microsoft PR at it's best.

I am imagining the quote from Southparks Saddam Hussein character with "Hey, relax guy. Trust me."

Microsoft has data centres around the world, so Cloud Compute Services are not something that you should think about on a country-by-country basis

It is if you want to factor in latency mr microsoft

Good to hear trog. AWS needs some competition.

Rackspace just announced AU pricing for their Sydney DC.

AFAIK the Azure DC announcement was to say it's coming but still ~18 months away.

Yeah, its coming soon. I asked Dean at the Azure meetup group, he doesn know any more either.

Dean from Mexia? Heh, that's who I asked :)

Rackspace just announced AU pricing for their Sydney DC.

Yeh Australia has gone mental with DC announcements in the last few months. I'm hoping this leads to a ridiculous oversupply and DC space comes way down, but haven't seen any sign of it yet (...if anything things are still getting more expensive).

In any case I find it extremely hard to believe Azure and local servers for Australians are not a big part of the Xbox One's rollout strategy - but of course, Microsoft have surprised everyone before so who knows what will happen.