Whereas if they actually have to have a colocated server somewhere running this thing, the baseline overhead for keeping the server up and running would be much more significant. If this was set up as a properly run AWS or Google Compute instance, then if it was only being used by a few players than the actual usage bill would come out to a rounding error. I think the videogame industry's relatively slow uptake on cloud technology is going to hurt games, especially from the last generation.
I suspect that is still true today but it matters a lot less since Microsoft has rolled out Azure servers specifically for use on Xbox Live. Click to shrink.I don't have specifics, but Microsoft was rather strict in regards to what external servers were allowed to be connected to Xbox Live, which added significant overhead (in regards to the hardware used, datacenters where servers could be hosted, and so on).
