Patent ID: 8145711

Claim:
A server to host a multi-player game, the server comprising: a network interface coupled to an Internet Protocol network, the network interface to send and receive data related to a multi-player game; a game play data module to receive multi-player game play data from a plurality of end user gaming devices via the network interface, wherein the multi-player game play data is received via a plurality of unicast transmissions; an assembly module to assemble the multi-player game play data received from the plurality of end user gaming devices to generate aggregated game update data; and a transmission module to transmit the aggregated game update data to each end user gaming device of a subset of the plurality of end user gaming devices in an internet protocol multicast transmission via the network interface, wherein each end user gaming device of the subset is multi-cast enabled, and to transmit the aggregated game update data to a particular end user gaming device of the plurality of end user gaming devices in an outgoing unicast transmission in response to an indication that the particular end user gaming device is not multicast-enabled.