Mah brain asplode from all da co-op...
It is a question that will be debated until the end of time: just how many players is the ideal when it comes to co-op games? Eight? Four? According to Infinity Ward, it's just two (yeah right). If you ask Microsoft, they are thinking a wee bit bigger. Like, many orders of magnitude bigger.
300,000
Don't believe us? A recent Microsoft job posting mentions qualifications including "building a backend capable of hosting a 300,000 player game in real-time". Almost a third of a million people, all playing at the same time? It's almost unimaginable. Our minds are blown just thinking about it!
Source: Link 
roland at 11:15 AM on 6.30.2009
Sounds like they're aiming for an MMO or a bigger version of something like 1 vs 100. 
rafoca at 11:29 AM on 6.30.2009
4 players is the magic number. 
bigDinyomouth at 03:58 PM on 6.30.2009
agreed 
smurphster at 03:59 PM on 6.30.2009
who are you agreeing with?
BigBadBob113 at 04:58 PM on 6.30.2009
300,000 is a lot!!!And I thought MAG was going to be a lot for a console game...
TheReaperCooL at 01:21 AM on 7.1.2009
Lets see... Back in the old days there was competitive multiplayer with 2 players. Then they made Coop with 2 players, 3 players, 4 players. Nowadays you can play Coop with 8-16 players, and it's nice, then with MAG you can play with 125 or so players. Nice! But playing with 300.000 players? I don't know what kind of game that will be, but if they are going to make an MMO then having only one server kinda sucks. Why? Because if the server is on maintenance for a long time then noone can play.Personally I think that playing Coop is enough with 8-16 players, but 4 is the minimum, ideal number. 4 so I can play with some of my friends, and when more of them have time then we could play together with 8-16 players.
Biohzrd451 at 02:53 AM on 7.1.2009
My guess would be them piloting a MMO if it takes off maybe more servers of that size, but for me 4 seems to work the best, yea it limits the people you play with but every time I get a game going with 4 people it just rocks. 
Zonf86 at 03:18 AM on 7.1.2009
Maybe work contributing towards APBs transfer to consoles?
smurphster at 05:05 AM on 7.1.2009
have you ever played an MMO? there are many servers, not just one, and depending on the architecture, they may work together on one environment, or they might each have their own environment. when maintenance is needed they normally don't pull all the servers at once. they can load balance with a smaller set of servers while maintenance is done on the few servers that are down and the impact is pretty small. they might lower the player limit for a while or something to make up for the lost processing power. of course some MMOs just take everything down for a few hours once a month to do maintenance. there are a lot of factors but when it comes down to it, downtime is pretty minimal.
however, if M$'s annual 24-hour XBL maintenance is any indication of how they'll operate an MMO, it could be pretty scary. although XBL is an entirely different creature.
COG_Network at 08:23 AM on 7.1.2009
SpyderTK says...roland is right. It's got to be an MMO or something like 1 vs 100.
aeiah at 11:39 AM on 7.1.2009
if it isnt a quiz or something then it'd have to be a game where 299900 of the players were represented in very basic terms.. like a wargame whereby you're surrounded by your platoon of 100, and the success of other platoons miles away will affect the environment, but you cant actually see them or anything. their performance just has a basic impact. bigDinyomouth at 03:56 PM on 7.1.2009
im agreeing with you papa smurf Login to Co-Optimus to comment.
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i've actually been a bit bummed lately because i'll be playing something (game w/ 4p co-op) w/ my wife and 2 brothers (4 total) and someone else will want to play... then co-op options fall off a cliff and we're forced to play something competitive. i wish some of these newer games would push the envelope and give us a few more slots at least. especially since my 3rd brother might be getting a 360 soon.