Microsoft Demoes Its Cloud Game Streaming Service ‘Project xCloud’

Microsoft just gave a live demo of its upcoming Project xCloud game streaming service. The project was originally unveiled last year with a promise to bring Netflix-like cloud gaming service that will allow streaming of games on PCs, consoles, and mobile devices.

At Microsoft’s Inside Xbox event, the CVP of Gaming Cloud, Kareem Choudhry, showed off a working version of the new gaming service on an Android device which appears to be a Samsung Galaxy S9.

The demo showed off Microsoft Forza Horizon 4 streaming from the company’s Azure datacenters on the device. The phone was connected to an Xbox One controller via Bluetooth describing how easy it’d be to stream games from the cloud to mobile devices.

“Anywhere we have a good network connection, we’ll be able to participate in Project xCloud,” said Kareem Choudhry in the video.

He compared Project xCloud to the likes of music or video streaming services and said that users would be able to log in from any device (phone, laptop, PC). They would find the same set of games library and will be able to pick up games where they left off.

Think of it as an Xbox-branded service that can be accessed on any device. Even if your device comes with an integrated Intel GPU, you could log in and play heavy games because everything would run in a data center near you.

Choudhry also clarified that this isn’t the end of consoles. He said, “It’s not a replacement for consoles, we’re not getting out of the console business.”

It is to be noted that Microsoft gave everyone a preview of Project xCloud just ahead of Google’s upcoming event at Game Developer Conference — where it is supposed to announce its own game streaming service Project Stream and maybe a gaming console controller as well.

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