PUBG has given Microsoft a huge boost ahead of its Xbox One release date.
Microsoft recently announced that Battlegrounds is now running on its cloud computing service Azure.
This was revealed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who told investors that it gives the company a big opportunity in the cloud.
“Gaming pushes the boundaries of hardware and software innovation, with some of the most CPU and GPU-intensive applications and content, giving us a huge opportunity in the cloud,” he said (via Windows Central).
“As one example, PUBG Corp., with the hit game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, is not only partnering to make Xbox the exclusive console at launch, but is also running on Azure.”
The switch from Amazon Web Services to Azure will raise the platform’s profile and could make it more attractive to other publishers in the future.
The news comes as PUBG developer Bluehole makes another big change in preparation for the Xbox One release date and full PC launch.
The Battlegrounds developer has finally reset the leaderboards, more than a week after originally planned.
The new leaderboard season was scheduled to kick off on October 11, but the popularity of the game made it impossible to make the change without causing major server issues.
The leaderboard reset has now gone live, although Bluehole has warned that there may be a period of instability while the update rolls out.
Battlegrounds takes place on a remote island where 100 players compete to be the sole survivor.
Similar to games like DayZ, players must gather supplies, armour and weapons in order to defeat other players.
And in a unique twist, the battleground actually gets smaller as games go on.
“Players will enter a last-man-standing battle where they try to locate weapons, vehicles and supplies in a graphically and tactically rich battleground that eventually forces players into a shrinking play zone as they engage in a tense and spectacular fight to the death,” reads a Bluehole statement.