Call of Duty: dedicated console servers impossible for past games

Call of Duty: Ghosts will have dedicated multiplayer servers on Xbox One, something Infinity Ward producer Mark Rubin has said would have been impossible as recently as 2007, when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare launched.

Speaking to Gamespot, Rubin said that Call of Duty is just too popular for most server architectures.

"We looked into dedicated servers on console when we were developing Call of Duty 4, and the problem was that we could only fit four [multiplayer] games onto each server. So, you times that by how many games were being played, and it was going to come out to be more servers than every data center in the United States. It would have been impossible to do," he said.

"Obviously the power of the servers grew, and we can fit more and more instances per server, which has helped a bit, and the fact now that Microsoft is supporting this huge cloud initiative, dedicated servers make a ton more sense. We'll have scalability, and we're not having to run data centers which we're not necessarily equipped to do. Having Microsoft do that is fantastic."

Now that online multiplayer is such an important part of gaming, Rubin praised Microsoft for running with cloud technology to enable console dedicated servers, but also noted that ISPs are making a difference.

"The infrastructure, the internet service producers, have all realised that and are starting to formulate their strategies for how they run their business around multiplayer social gaming. I remember on Call of Duty 4 we have problems in Europe because some of the ISPs here were bandwidth limiting video game traffic," he said.

"We fought and fought with those guys, and literally sent people to those companies trying to explain what's going on, and fortunately today I think it's a significantly improved environment."

Call of Duty: Ghosts is due on PC, PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 on November 5, with playStation 4 and Xbox One versions due at hardware launch.