So why do only ' some games' and ' some people' need it? Games could be hosted in mainly two ways: dedicated server or P2P. This means those multiple devices can negotiate between external parties and your router to ensure any traffic is able to get where it needs to go uninhibited and without any intervention from you.

UPnP is a method for the console to ask your router to prepare for an incoming external connection right before it happens by creating a temporary forward of specific ports to a specific device for a limited amount of time. Additionally, many modern console games don't stick with a single known port, but instead randomly pick among a large range each time you connect, requiring you to forward thousands of ports in order to support a single game. If you have, say two Xboxes, this is a problem since you can only forward 'Xbox Live' or 'Halo' ports to one Xbox at a time. If, however, you know the exact kind of conversation that an external device will be trying to start (what ports it will use), you can make a specific exception and allow it to go to one device in your network at that specific port. This is a limitation of how they save costs for home grade connections, and the reasoning is a bit more complicated. An external device on the internet cannot start a conversation with a device on your internal network, it has to be the internal device that reaches out to that specific external device first. 1 Any device inside your network may start a 'conversation' with an external device on the internet, and they can communicate back and forth usually with no issues.

What's UPnP? NAT routers by nature only allow one-way connection initiation. Unless you are paying your ISP for a business grade connection and have business grade hardware, you have a NAT router. What's a NAT router? It allows you to connect your multiple devices to the internet over a single consumer/home grade internet connection. Simple answer: Having a gaming console/PC behind a NAT router without UPnP will prevent you from playing some games with some people The more people online with UPnP, the less this is an issue.

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