We're now less than a week away until Project xCloud (Microsoft's game streaming service) officially enters Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for all users on September 15th, but various testers have already been using it for the past few months, and Xbox boss Phil Spencer has thanked them in a personal email.

In addition, the Project xCloud team has shared a video message which you can watch above, featuring a couple of short cameos from Phil Spencer along with many other employees within the Xbox team.

Here's a bit of what Phil had to say in his email:

"There are unique moments when the entire gaming paradigm shifts. Right now is one of those moments. I hope you feel proud that your feedback and your contributions helped shape it and define the future of cloud gaming for all.

Thanks to you, starting September 15 Project xCloud is graduating to Beta and will now be available for millions of players around the world, included as a part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription at no additional charge."

To go with this, the team has provided everyone who took part in the program with a downloadable Founding Member badge (although we're not sure whether these will be added to users' Xbox profiles as well), complete with a custom video call background with the words, "I shaped the future of cloud gaming!". Neat.

Have you received this email? Displaying your badge anywhere? Let us know in the comments.