Phil Spencer had veiledly hinted at this technology at last E3 and several rumors suggested that Microsoft was actively working on the project, but now it's officially reality: Microsoft has just announced Project xCloud,a game streaming technology that will allow us to play with our past, present and future Xbox titles wherever we want.

The concept behind Project xCloud is the same as other similar technologies we've seen adopted by Sony and recently also by Google, but Microsoft pushes service optimization, able to provide a satisfying gaming experience even on mobile networks, and the advantage that will be provided by its Azure infrastructure: these are dozens of data centers scattered around the world where will be installed entire cabinets full of blades capable of natively running Xbox games, and then transmitting them to players around the world.

Microsoft explains that this technology will be tested in 2019 to make sure it can satisfy players from all countries around the world, but in the meantime it has already been released in an Azure data center, Quincy in the USA, and is currently used internally with extremely satisfactory results in terms of graphics yield and latency. Another interesting note is that developers will be able to decide to have their games on this infrastructure without applying any changes: all titles, both current and future console titles, will be automatically supported by Project xCloud.

The new streaming system will allow us to play on smartphones and tablets with all Xbox games, and to do so we can use both the Xbox One controller, connected via bluetooth, and the touch controls that will be automatically added by the system to all games, although they will certainly be less practical. This technology is also not to be confused with theXbox Cloud that Microsoft had talked about at the beginning of the generation, which has a completely different purpose.

For now, the ad is for technology only: no details have been revealed on how the new streaming system will be tested or how it will work commercially: will it be included in Game Pass? And if we buy a single game digitally, can we play it where we want to stream? These are all questions that we expect answers to in the coming months.

For now we leave you to the trailer for the presentation of the new technology: good viewing!