14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts has reportedly canceled Titanfall pre-orders placed in South Africa, due to poor network test results, which would have a negative impact on the game's performance.
The decision was forecasted by South African gaming website MyGaming last month, stating that Titanfall's multiplayer battles will not provide the same smooth and rich experience other regions of the world will be able to enjoy, due to the game utilizing Microsoft's Azure service to host dedicated servers.
Titanfall using Azure is great, because it takes the load off the end-user, is scalable on demand and it will ensure that no host migration will have to occur mid-match, among other things such as no host latency advantage or unstable connections due to poor host service.
But the downside is that the Azure servers are spread throughout the world, and if you're quite away from one of them, such being the case of North Africa, then all the advantages become disadvantages.
As Microsoft South Africa has confirmed, there are no physical server deployments for the Azure network in South Africa, and South African customers currently receive Azure services through the company's vast worldwide network of Microsoft Datacenters.
As such, the South African magazine, together with the South African branch of EA Games have come up with an official answer regarding the network latency concerns.
"EA, Respawn and Microsoft have been testing Titanfall all over the world, including South Africa, and we're confident that players worldwide will have a great experience when the game launches in March. Of course, we'll always be looking to improve that experience over time – whether that's through local resources or other enhancements – but we have no other news on that today," was the official response from EA.
Of course, a solution will be found given enough time, but for now the performance of the game will boil down to how fast Azure servers in the adjacent regions will be reached by South African gamers and how stable those connections will prove to be.
Titanfall is scheduled to come out on March 11 in North America and March 13 in Europe for the PC and Xbox One platforms, and on March 25 in North America and March 28 in Europe for the Xbox 360 home entertainment system.