Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Announces Project Xcloud For Streaming Games To PCs, Consoles, and Mobile Devices (theverge.com)
Microsoft has unveiled "Project xCloud," its new game streaming service designed to work across consoles, PCs, and mobile devices. "Scaling and building out Project xCloud is a multi-year journey for us," explains Microsoft's cloud gaming chief Kareem Choudhry in a blog post. "We'll begin public trials in 2019 so we can learn and scale with different volumes and locations." The Verge reports: Microsoft has built custom hardware for its datacenters, as The Verge previously exclusively reported, so that existing and future Xbox games will be compatible with the services. Games will be streamed to devices, and Microsoft has been testing the xCloud service with Xbox wireless controllers connected to consoles, mobile devices, and PCs. Microsoft says its research teams are "creating ways to combat latency" via advanced network techniques combined with video encoding and decoding. This should make game streaming viable on 4G networks, too.
Not interested. I'll stick to playing retro games that don't have $300 worth of DLC to buy to be usable, or require an internet connection to function.
Microsoft is 0 for 3 in the console market after some sixteen years or so.
The first Xbox marketplace failure just barely avoided coming in last place due to Nintendo dumping the GameCube a few months earlier.
The second Xbox came in last place worldwide despite being rushed out the door a year early compared to the PS3 and having the 'luxury' of the RRoD hardware fiasco that led Xbox owners to buy tens of millions of duplicate consoles.
The third Xbox is going to be dumped into last place by the Switch. It's only a matter of soon it will happen.
The days of Steve Ballmer endlessly throwing billions of dollars failed Microsoft products like the Xbox are over.
For years Microsoft has been trying to get hardware manufacturers to build Xbox branded hardware while Microsoft rakes in royalties. No one has been stupid enough to do so.
So here we are. Say goodbye to the Xbox fiasco.
If Microsoft is going to fail in the gaming market, it is cheaper to fail in the game streaming market than trying to design and build console hardware that can compete with a tech powerhouse like Sony.
OoT was better than MM
Wind Waker was better than MM.
BotW was better than MM. Almost as good as OoT.
MM was better than SS and maybe TP.
Shit. Meant to spell out Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. (If you don't know OoT or BotW you're a bad person.)
The last game I'd call art was: 'Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time.'
That was brilliant, the purpose of the game was to find the game.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I had previously predicted someone would do this. Looks like they did.
My feelings are mixed. It's a cool technology that would enable older devices to run new games, but yeah, this probably won't be cheap and you get locked in to a 'remote system' you can't touch.
I think this qualifies for a 'Good luck with that!'
5g home broadband is rolling out now, no caps (yet) and super low latency.
Play through The Witcher 3 and come back and tell me when the golden era of video games was.
Ownership is an illusion. You are allowed to pretend you own it by the incorporated town you live in. Do not pay your taxes and see how quickly you stop owning it.
I wouldn't waste my money on renting something anyway, but stream screams laggy, which would make me scream in a continuous stream. Haha. But yeah, no thanks.
Total control over everything; this is far worse than your usual thin client. With those you could at least attempt some middle man sniffer, decrypt, reverse engineer something it was expecting and slowly build your own private server.
This is an abomination just like every non live streaming service and I hope it never prospers. Given the idiocy of the average user its sadly going still going to.