The power of the cloud brings with it many advantages but also some significant setbacks. According to Xbox Live lead program manager John Bruno, automatic cloud updates on Xbox One will result in the system rebooting, interrupting whatever the user is doing at the time.
Bruno explained during a GDC Next presentation:
Once in a while, rather frequently actually, the host OS will require an update, meaning the physical machine is going to get rebooted whether your code is running or not. That’s a problematic thing for a game, and oftentimes it's in the middle of a multiplayer session. We’ve worked very hard to overcome that, but that’s not to say it’s going to be a reality in every case.
This could especially prove to be a problem for those playing Titanfall, a game that reportedly relies heavily on the cloud. Speaking to Respawn's game specifically, Bruno went on to confess that Microsoft doesn't have a solution, as the game's cloud integration is primarily in the hands of the developer.
I can’t answer that. I don’t know what the guys over at Titanfall have built into their game. It’s up to the game developer. If they want to rely more on our XBLC service, we’re happy to support that. We do provide a platform for them to persist data, but that’s up to the developer to utilize that.
Here's to hoping Microsoft manages to remedy this issue sooner rather than later. Rebooting mid-game without warning will certainly piss more than just a few gamers off.
