SEGA Corporation

In the present day, good games can be played by anyone, regardless of where the players are. However, delivering such games to people around the globe without changing what makes the game interesting requires overcoming several technical challenges.

In April 2020, SEGA started the service of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) named Phantasy Star Online 2 in North America. As of October 2020, the global version of the game is played in more than 185 countries and regions worldwide. The company is required to provide the service in an area far wider than Japanwithout causing lags while players are enjoying actions in the gameand that is why it chose Microsoft Azure as its platform.

Selecting the cloud as a foundation to mitigate risk in a game project with flexible sizingSEGA Corporation is a member of SEGA SAMMY Group. This company develops, manufactures,

and sells video games, and is known for creating best games in the industry. Phantasy Star Online

(PSO2), one of the largest MMORPGs in Japan, is made and run by this company.

PSO2 is an action role-playing game (RPG). In this game, players can enjoy raising their character,

communicating with other players, defeating strong enemies, and exploring for valuable items in

the world in which science fiction and medieval fantasy are fused together.

The first Phantasy Star was released in 1987, and its sequels have been loved by many all this

time. PSO2 is the newest title in the series, with “infinite adventure” as its concept, meaning it has

contents that let players keep playing it for a long time. This game has been released for multiple

Customer NameSEGA Corporationhttps://www.sega.co.jp

Product or ServiceAzureAzure Ultra Disk

IndustryGaming

OrganizationLarge (1,000 - 9,999 employees)

CountryJapan

Published in December 2020

Azure enables successful global service of MMORPG title Phantasy Star Online 2

SEGA Corporation

platforms. It was launched as a game for Windows PC, and then for

PlayStation Vita and subsequentially for PlayStation 4 (PS4). Later, when

the game started its service for Nintendo Switch, it did so as a cloud

gaming service. The year 2020 marked the eighth anniversary of this

game..

PSO2 had been running its service only in Japan. However, according

to Hisashi Endo, Technical Director of 2nd Program Section, 2nd

Department of CS R&D No.3, 3rd Division at SEGA, the idea of running

its service overseas had been on the developer’s mind for a long time.

“Since the game has been well received in Japan, we had wanted to

expand its service to overseas markets for a long time,” explains Endo.

“The North American market is particularly large among the global

markets. However, to run the service overseas, we must overcome

various difficulties, including operation and maintenance of overseas

servers and providing user support that fits with local culture. We had

an ambition for expanding our service to overseas, but it required time

to embody our plan for that.”

One of the largest technical issues was a game server. The company

could borrow a datacenter in a foreign land, but that would require

travelling long distances for maintenance work. According to Mitsunori

Fujimoto, Manager of the Development IT Support Team at SEGA,

because of this, the team started to consider using the public cloud.

“At SEGA, we started to use a cloud service for the foundation of our

game in 2008, which was a relatively early period in the history of cloud

computing,” explains Fujimoto. “It is quite hard to predict whether a

game will become a hit before releasing it. Compared with on-premises,

cloud computing allows more flexible sizing, so it can mitigate risk in

the game project.”

Thus, the company started to research public clouds to see if any

of these services could work as a game server of PSO2. During the

research, however, it realized the huge difficulty unique to an online

action RPG.

Azure Ultra Disk Storage: Enabling performance without spoiling playabilityEndo explains that the result of researching cloud services of several

companies showed none of them could satisfy the required level of

performance.

“PSO2 relies more heavily on a performance of game server than that

of client terminals, explains Endo. “We conduct on-premises server

operation when servers are in Japan, and we tune servers to shorten

the response time of queries issued to a database to 1 millisecond or

less. If a platform cannot assure both IOPS and throughput at high

level, it spoils the action element of PSO2. During our first research, we

had to conclude that none of cloud services could satisfy our needs.”

“To start the service of PSO2 in North America, it is difficult to adopt a

cloud service as the game foundation.” That was the gist of the report

Endo began to write for his superiors in October 2018. Just around

that time, he heard about Microsoft Azure Ultra Disk Storage (formerly

known as Ultra SSD).

Ultra Disk Storage is a top-tier disk storage on an infrastructure as a

service (IaaS) virtual machine (VM) provided by Azure. It supports high

capacity, high IOPS and high throughput, and enables operation of

workload with very high IO demand.

“At that time, Ultra Disk had not been released yet, but members of

Microsoft Japan negotiated with their headquarters and prepared

an environment for us,” recalls Endo. “We immediately checked its

performance and the result was surprising. It was more than equal to

the performance of the on-premises server tuned for PSO2. It looked

promising, and we became so excited. We could not start our service of

PSO2 in North America without Azure.”

It was the first time that Azure was chosen for the foundation of

consumer service provided by SEGA. However, Fujimoto says with smile

that migrating from on-premises to Azure “did not cause any hardship

to us..

“It was the first time for us to use Azure on a massive scale, but we

actually started that quite smoothly,” notes Fujimoto. “PSO2 had been

running on a Windows server, so we had expected that the game

would be compatible with Ultra Disk as well, and it was even better than

that. Because Ultra Disk showed very high performance, we did not

have any trouble in the migration and the tuning. Of course, we found

a difference in usability between on-premises server and Ultra Disk,

but thankfully, we received immediate support from Microsoft for our

technical questions. If I have to speak of any hardship I experienced, it

would be that since Ultra Disk was a very popular service, at the start of

SEGA Corporation

concurrent accesses per one world, depending on hardware ability,” explains Endo. “If a number of accesses exceed this maximum number,

we need to replace a hardware. However, Ultra Disk has a function to

dynamically change setting capacity, IOPS, and throughput. This is why

at the time of releasing this game in North America, we could change

the setting for the number of concurrent accesses to three times more

than that of the Japanese version, without stopping our service. Even

after that, we have repeatedly optimized the sizing of the cloud as

the number of users increased or decreasedthus reducing the cost

without spoiling our services.”

Release of PSO2 in North America had been anticipated by gamers in

the region. When it was announced at Xbox E3 Briefing 2019, audiences

became so excited. Using Ultra Disk Storage as the game foundation

enabled SEGA to provide this game to the users without letting them

down.

Fujimoto evaluated the operation of Azure with the perspective of

administrator.

“I had an impression that it is more stable than other cloud services.

Even when a failure occurs, it provides us detailed information,” says

Fujimoto. “It reports the cause of a failure very quickly and with details,

which helps those of us who operate the cloud service a lot. Also, we

found that Azure has an excellent dashboard. Even when we changed

a configuration, it showed us clearly the cost, such as ‘How much is the

price related to this project?’ This kind of usability for administrators

should be advertised more by Microsoft salespeople.”

“When I first heard the explanation about it,” recalls Fujimoto, “I thought that the pricing plans were too complicated and proposed

prices were not cheap at all. I began not liking it, and even thought that

‘I would never use this service’. However, as I heard more about it, I

gradually started to think ‘this may be good, after all’.”

Fujimoto continues about why his impression was changed.

“The biggest reason was the salespeople,” Fujimoto continues. “They

often visited us and repeatedly made explanations and proposals.

People from Microsoft did not finish their explanation with ‘We are

sorry, but we have to follow the decisions made by headquarters’, and

instead responded to our requests flexibly as a provider of enterprise

computing products. I started with the worst impression of your service,

but ended up introducing it to our product. Isn’t that like a romance

drama, with marriage as the final episode?”

our using it we had difficulty in securing instances.”

Handling server accesses three times more than expected, thus living up to fans’ expectations

In 2020, PSO2 finally started its service in North America. It was

released for Xbox One on April 14, and for Windows PC on May 27.

“Of course, we had done research to see how many players would play

the game,” says Endo, “but in the end, we would never know until the

game went live. Right after its release in North America, the number of

players was three times more than our expectation.”

Endo continued, saying that because of the functions of Ultra Disk

Storage, the company could handle this unexpected number of

accesses flexibly.

“The Japanese version of the game, which is run with on-premises

operation of the server, is designed to limit the maximum number of

SEGA Corporation

Achieving global release of PSO2 with Azure as its foundation, continuing to provide new games in futureWith success in North America as a start, SEGA continued releasing

PSO2 globally. On August 5, 2020, the game started its service in

33 countries and regions including Europe, India and Oceania. As of

October 2020, the game is played in about 227 countries and regions

around the globe. Their global expansion of the game has been steadily

ongoing.

“‘Providing the game made in Japan to people around the world’ is

one of the goals of SEGA,” says Fujimoto. “Releasing PSO2 around the

globe with Azure as its foundation is a huge success, which will surely

boost up our motivation.”

In July 2020, a Microsoft online conference called “Xbox Games

Showcase” was streamed, and during the streaming, it was revealed

that PSO2 will evolve even further.

Endo concludes, “In 2021, we will start Phantasy Star Online 2: New

Genesis, which is the l updated version of PSO2. It is the newest one in

the series with a renewed game system and graphics engine. Of course,

we aim to release it in not only Japan and North America, but countries

around the world as well. To handle this kind of huge project, I will need

to learn more about how to operate Azure.”

SEGA became the first company to adopt Ultra Disk Storage in the

video game industry, and succeeded in releasing widely in the game

world-. In 2020, the company celebrated its 60th anniversary since its

foundation, and it will continue providing innovative content to the

world.

P e o p l e f r o m M i c r o s o f t … r e s p o n d e d t o o u r r e q u e s t s flexibly as a provider of enterprise computing produc ts . I s tar ted with the worst impression on your service, but ended up introducing it to our product. Isn’t that like a romance drama, with marriage as the final episode?”

Mitsunori Fujimoto 　Manager of the Development IT Support Team, 　SEGA Corporation

MN

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