Right on heels of the launch of Google’s game streaming service in beta, Microsoft has come up with something very similar of its own. The company has come up with Project xCloud, which will let people stream Xbox games, and which is also an extremely important step towards making some of the most popular game titles in the world, completely platform agnostic.
The service is not currently available to the general public, which puts it a few steps behind Google’s Project Stream, which is already in beta. Microsoft’s project will currently focus on getting developers on-board and creating and optimizing content before it can be streamed to users. However, the fact that it already has a vast number of gaming titles available, may help it get to speed rapidly.
With xCloud, games will run on the cloud and will be rendered on screens of your choice. So theoretically, you could stream Xbox games on your mobile, laptop and so on and so forth. However, there is a huge ‘theoretically’ here. A lot of other factors would be at play as well, including for instance, whether your your smartphone touch can keep up with the amount of controls that the Xbox console/PC keyboard can enable.
Speaking on the topic, Microsoft said:
Cloud game-streaming is a multi-faceted, complex challenge. Unlike other forms of digital entertainment, games are interactive experiences that dynamically change based on player input. Delivering a high-quality experience across a variety of devices must account for different obstacles, such as low-latency video streamed remotely, and support a large, multi-user network. In addition to solving latency, other important considerations are supporting the graphical fidelity and framerates that preserve the artist’s original intentions, and the type of input a player has available.
Microsoft certainly has the “challenge” part right. However, the Redmond giant has the resources to pull it off as well. Let’s see how this story develops, with various other players including Google, in the fray.
