Microsoft has just lifted the lid on its future plans for hardware, software and all that sits in-between, and has revealed that Xbox Cloud Gaming is headed to consoles - along with pretty much everything else - later this year.
While rivals such as Google and Sony are also contesting the cloud gaming space, Microsoft's Azure platform gives it a real edge over its rivals, and by twinning Xbox Cloud Gaming with Game Pass, the company is driving adoption at an impressive rate.
It's clear that, although the firm is still invested in pushing dedicated gaming hardware like the Xbox Series X and S, it's also thinking of a much bigger audience thanks to the power of the cloud – but by integrating the service with its consoles, Microsoft clearly feels it can make some impressive things happen, like "try before you download."
Kareem Choudhry, CVP of cloud gaming, said:
A phone that can only play Angry Birds can now play MLB The Show. An affordable laptop made for web browsing can now play Halo in full fidelity. This is what playing anywhere you want looks like. Delivering on this promise together has been years in the making.
Later this year, we'll add cloud gaming directly to the Xbox app on PCs, and integrated into our console experience, to light up all kinds of scenarios, like 'try before you download.'
What do you make of Microsoft's cloud strategy? Let us know with a comment below.
[source news.xbox.com, via gamesradar.com]
Comments 11
I like the try before you download. I don't enjoy wasting time and resources downloading Conan Exiles when I became disinterested in 15 minutes with the gameplay and setting.
@Halucigens It'll be amazing for those of us who do the Xbox Game Pass Quests as part of Microsoft Rewards as well.
Yeah this is perfect. There are just so many examples of when this will be ideal.
@FraserG Oh definitely. I didn't even think about that. Yeah I have a hard time redownloading a game I already uninstalled just to get a weekly like the MLB The Show create a character one last week. Great advice
I been saying this for so long, and know they won’t do it but I still say it again: let Xbox 360 consoles run XCloud games!!!
Believe it or not, I know non-insignificant number of players that still game exclusively on 360, yes that means they only play older games, argue all anyone wants, these people are perfectly content with their 360 (although they would take a newer free console of anyone wants to give one to them for free.)
@Tharsman I think it will come to XB1 as the 360 is perhaps too old and been out of production too long. I don't know if it would have sufficient wifi capabilities to stream a game and send back 'controller' inputs too. You are talking about a console that is essentially 15yrs old now...
@BAMozzy wifi? Most 360 models had no wifi 😅
But like I said, don’t actually expect them to do it, and technically no need with the addition of Xbox streaming sticks.
So this is basically like PS Now where you can stream the games and not just download them.
This'll be decent for me, my phone on WiFi is about 12mbps download which makes xCloud unplayable. My Xbox is about 35-63(max) which will hopefully yield better results
As @FraserG mentioned, this will be great for game pass quests
I'm guessing this might be how they might deliver flight simulator to us One users too!
Clearly Xbox believes in generations. Putting the latest games on all generations, that is.
I just got banned on Push Square, didn't I?
Interesting to think that you can:
1. Stream a game demo of level 1
2. Like it, so Buy it
2. Continue to play it, while it's downloading
3. Once it's downloaded, just pick up the save game 'locally' where you left off 'remotely'
This obviously covers
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