Project xCloud
Microsoft today unveiled their latest in cloud streaming technology. They're currently calling it Project xCloud and this "state-of-the-art" technology will allow consumers to stream games on any platform of their choice. If you've seen or heard of one streaming service, you probably know the deal by now.

The Microsoft blog entry on Project xCloud does a pretty good job at giving you the rundown on what this technology will allow you to do.
Ultimately, Project xCloud is about providing gamers — whether they prefer console or PC — new choices in when and where they play, while giving mobile-only players access to worlds, characters and immersive stories they haven’t been able to experience before.

To realize this vision, we know we must make it easy for developers to bring their content to Project xCloud. Developers of the more than 3,000 games available on Xbox One today, and those building the thousands that are coming in the future, will be able to deploy and dramatically scale access to their games across all devices on Project xCloud with no additional work.


Microsoft says that they plan to roll out public trials starting in 2019. As with most cloud gaming services, Microsoft hopes that they can get as close as possible to replicating the gaming experience you would have gaming on a system that is physically in the room with you. Microsoft has even built their own custom hardware for use in datacenters.


This custom hardware is actually made up primarily of components from multiple Xbox One consoles in a single server blade. They can then put these blades in the same locations that they have Azure datacenters. Azure obviously being the name of Microsoft's existing cloud service used for hosting and other cloud related tasks.

At present, Microsoft has Azure datacenters in 54 different regions with services available in 140 countries. Their hope is that Project xCloud will have the ability to stream games on 4G networks with the ability to scale to the faster speeds of 5G networks in the future.