Microsoft and Xbox were dropping bombs during their Insider Xbox show today, weren’t they?. First, it was Halo: The Master Chief Collection news, and then the showing of Project xCloud. We wondered when we’d hear more about this offering, seeing how it was announced during October 2018.
Yes, Microsoft’s Xbox One in the cloud, in a playable form. Well, sort of. The demo of Forza Horizon 4 on the Xbox One controller, with the smartphone attached, didn’t match the motions of the person playing it. Honestly, the entire segment looked fake. However, that wasn’t the big news. No, the big news was that Microsoft will start Project xCloud trials later this year.
No word on when exactly that will be.
Play the games you want, on the devices you want, whenever you want. Project xCloud has big plans, and they're kicking off this year. #InsideXbox pic.twitter.com/kyoXSjDc4W
— Xbox (@Xbox) March 12, 2019
Remember all that talk about games being powered by the cloud? Sure it didn’t pan out before, but this is a brand new ball game. If you think that streaming games from the cloud or GaaS (Games as a Service) isn’t catching on, then you really need to take notice. Microsoft is not about to let its competition get ahead of them in this market. Google has already publically demoed their cloud service, Project Stream. Which we had access to and thought it definitely had potential. With Google also teasing their entry into the world of gaming, many are speculating that Project Stream is going to be at the forefront of it all.
Playing all the games we already own, or games we don’t, without requiring an Xbox One or PC to run them sounds like a winner to me. Yes, there are several factors that play into this, bandwidth, input latency, and a few others. Granted, all of those make for a compelling argument. None the less, streaming games is on the way, and Microsoft/Xbox fully intends to take advantage of it. Yelling at the cloud won’t make any difference, so don’t waste your time.
There’s currently no word of when we’ll see this available as a service, nor any mention of a price. When we know, you’ll know.
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