At E3 2018, Microsoft announced that it was working on a game streaming service. Users would be able to play their games no matter if they were on a phone or tablet. Today, the company provided more details about "Project xCloud". In a post on the Official Microsoft Blog, Kareem Choudhry, Corporate Vice President of Cloud Gaming said the following.
The highlights from this announcement have to be the ability to play on a smartphone or tablet, the fact that developers don't have to do any additional work, public trials are taking place in 2019, and that it's going to work with existing 4G networks and support 5G networks in the future.
The future of gaming is a world where you are empowered to play the games you want, with the people you want, whenever you want, wherever you are, and on any device of your choosing. Our vision for the evolution of gaming is similar to music and movies... Project xCloud is about providing gamers... new choices in when and where they play, while giving mobile-only players access to worlds, characters and immersive stories they haven't been able to experience before... Developers of the more than 3,000 games available on Xbox One today... will be able to deploy and dramatically scale access to their games across all devices on Project xCloud with no additional work... We'll begin public trials in 2019... Project xCloud will have the capability to make game streaming possible on 4G networks and... push against the outer limits of what's possible on 5G networks.
The hurried Project xCloud announcement seems to be a result of Google's Project Stream test with Assassin's Creed Odyssey. However, Microsoft may have an edge because the company is in a unique position to push out exclusive content created by teams like Playground Games or Ninja Theory. It's unclear what the future will hold, but it's definitely an exciting time to be a gamer. Console-quality games are going to become even more accessible in the near future.
