Microsoft Xcloud game streaming is coming
It goes without saying that advances in streaming technology seems to be the way the future is headed, especially for the gaming industry. Although details of the successor to the PS4, announced yesterday have been kept fairly sparse, we have now been given into the Microsoft Xcloud game streaming service. The streaming service will be available for consoles, allowing games that are console quality, as well as the ability for use on smart phone devices.
When will we get our first look?
As it stands from the announcement on the Microsoft blog the Microsoft Xcloud game streaming service will be going out in 2109 for public trials.
How will the service work?
As per the details provided in the blog announcement, players are going to be able to connect their Xbox One controller to a supported device. This will mean that smart phones will be able to use Bluetooth to pair a controller combined with a small attachment to make it easier to use. As an alternative to using an Xbox One controller, players will also be able to use touch controls instead.
The Microsoft Xcloud game streaming service uses a combination of custom made hardware which uses the components of multiple Xbox One consoles, with Microsoft’s Azure cloud service as a foundation to setup fresh datacentres.
Fortunately for Microsoft, the Azure service already has a backing of data centres covering 140 countries, meaning it’ll be able to roll the service out on a fairly large scale. With current tests running at around 10 MBPS the scope is also to improve latency. Microsoft’s end-game is to ensure the Microsoft Xcloud game streaming service is available using 4G.
In theory Microsoft wants developers to be able to make their games available for the game streaming service without having to take on extra workload to enable this. Backwards compatible games currently on Xbox One requires an additional amount of effort – nobody wants extra work!
Are others following suit?
Although the PlayStation Now service already offers game streaming, its now enabling users to download them as an alternative. Project Stream on the other hand is Google’s new game streaming service which it recently used Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to run a test to see how it’d perform.
