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Microsoft announces Project xCloud, their game streaming service they teased at E3

by: John -
More On: xCloud

Game streaming services aren't new. We've had it for a while with services like Gaikai and OnLive. Some have been successful, some are no longer with us.

We're seeing more come out as Google's testing their service called Project Stream. Sony's got theirs and NVIDA's been in the streaming game for a long time.

Today, Microsoft announced their leap into this area with Project xCloud. xCloud will let you play all your Xbox games, streamed from Microsoft's cloud network, which I assume will be Azure based, onto a device of your choice. The video talks about how they have four Xbox One consoles in a blade server handling four concurrent users streaming to something like say their Android phone.

You can use an Xbox controller connected to your device via Bluetooth or touch controls. Questions will come up, of course on how well it does with latency and fidelity so hopefully, Microsoft has some tech in those areas to really optimize the experience. 

This doesn't mean an end to consoles for them of course. Far from it. It's just another option for consumers to play games on a device of their choosing. 

The service will be ready to trial next year as their currently doing internal testing.