Tech giant Microsoft will soon launch its cloud gaming service in the United States. The project xCloud, once rolled out, will enable its users to play video games from their smartphones powered by Android. xCloud is the working title of Xbox cloud gaming streaming service of Microsoft. Apart from the US, the Washington headquartered company is also planning to launch xCloud game streaming service in the UK and South Korea. There is no word from the company on when it will be launched in the rest of the world. The service will be rolled out for its users in the three countries in October this year, according to its official blog post this week. Interestingly, the company didn’t reveal the price of xCloud in its blog.
To play video games from smartphone, one will need to have a wireless Xbox One controller. The phone or tablet that runs Android 6.0 or later version with Bluetooth support would be required.
The company has already begun registrations for its public preview in the US, UK and South Korea. Corporate VP for xCloud at Microsoft, Kareem Choudhry said that the company wants people to become a part of its journey from the beginning. Kareem invited people to have fun playing and share valuable feedback. India-born Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had moved away from some consumer areas but stuck with gaming. While Microsoft has deeper roots in gaming than anyone in the industry, it lacks its own major mobile operating system. The original Xbox was released in 2001. It is believed that gaming accounted for 9% of Microsoft’s total business in recent years. Nadella also feels that xCloud would be another way to showcase the company’s cloud-computing infrastructure to its competitors. Also, xCloud also serves his vision of developing products that can work on all devices rather on machines created by Microsoft. Ever since Microsoft had in 2018 announced its game streaming service plan, Apple and Google, the two companies that develop mobile operating systems, have announced subscription to mobile game services.
