Microsoft Xbox streaming will split games to keep the latency low

Last month, we learned that Microsoft is developing a pair of Xbox news for 2020 under the code name Scarlett. A system will be a complete console; the other will be a cloud-connected system for streaming games. Today, Brad Sams at Thurrott.com has more to say about this streaming box.

We know that Microsoft has been interested in developing a streaming service for many years. At this year's E3, the company reaffirmed that it was working on a streaming service that will allow games to be run in the Azure cloud and broadcast on a relatively simple decoder. This makes the end-user hardware much cheaper, but it has a constant problem: latency. Each press on the controller must move over the Internet to the server before it can be processed, and each video frame must make the same return before it can be seen. For games that do not rely on twitch reactions (RPG or turn-based games, let's say) that's not a big deal. But for games like first person shooter games, it's a huge problem.

According to Sams, Microsoft's solution is that the Scarlett Cloud box (as one person has said) will have a processing power of its own. Not enough to run complete sets, but enough to perform collision detection, input management, and a certain amount of graphical processing locally without having to wait for the remote server. To do this, the games are divided into two parts (called "slices" or "splices") – a part runs in the cloud; the other works on the console

The result is that Scarlett Cloud is apparently suitable for a wide range of games, even those that would normally be considered too latency sensitive to be streamable. In fact, Sams reports that each Scarlett game will work on all Scarlett devices, so streaming players will not be forgotten.

The disadvantage of this approach is that it makes the hardware more expensive than it was from a purely silly device streaming, but it remains significantly cheaper than that. A complete console should be. Streaming games will obviously require some sort of subscription to play. This recurring income is a big part of why the company is interested in streaming games in the first place.