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Google has not announced Stadia in the void; Streaming games services have been running for years, with varying degrees of success. The technology to provide high-end graphics with virtually no lag over miles of cables and Wi-Fi networks has recently become robust enough. Thus, it is not surprising that Microsoft announced Tuesday the public presentation of its own remote game service xCloud, available from next month.
The service has been under construction at Microsoft for some time now. The company gave GDC and Gamescom attendees an overview of its work and announced it a year ago. With the publication of the public preview, Microsoft wants to test its evolution and see what problems arise when people who are not employees play outside the controlled networks.
Just like the Xbox launched with Halo, xCloud will be too. The first games available on the platform are Halo 5: Guardians, Gears 5, Killer Instinct, and Sea of thieves. Other games are planned to join them because Microsoft is working on improving the game service.
To participate in the preview, you must have a phone or tablet running Android 6 Marshmallow or later with Bluetooth 4.0, a Microsoft account and an Xbox One controller. You must have at least 10 Mbit / s downstream and the company recommends a 5 GHz connection if you use the service over Wi-Fi. Access to the games is provided via a new Game Streaming application. To improve and optimize xCloud, Microsoft has also announced technical partnerships with T-Mobile in the United States, Vodafone in the United Kingdom and SK Telecom in South Korea. You will still need an unlimited data plan to play reasonably.
The public preview will take place in October and will be available in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Korea. To register, go to the Microsoft xCloud website, click on "Register Now" at the bottom of the page, fill out a form, and then you can expect to receive an invitation. Until now, the company has stated that the service is free and has not announced price. Microsoft even says that "this technology will last several years," so you can expect the company to open up the preview to more people and countries before publishing a stable version.
Microsoft's approach to deploying multi-year tests is much more cautious than Google's efforts at disruption, and it will be interesting to see how competition will behave in the long run. Redmond's comfortable position in the gaming industry allows it to act more thoughtfully and the service may end up feeling more complete than Google's launch.
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