At E3 2019 yesterday, Microsoft announced more details about its new xCloud game streaming service.
After first teasing it back in October and a brief demo in March, we're now starting to hear a bit more, including attendees getting a first look at it.
The idea behind xCloud, which will get a preview in October this year, is to "turn your Xbox One into your own personal and free xCloud server," says Xbox head Phil Spencer. Unfortunately, there's still no full release date or pricing scheme announced yet.
Basically, you'll be able to stream all the games in your console's library to a number of devices, meaning you could possibly be playing Quantum Break on your PC, or Forza on your smartphone.
It's the ultimate move in cross-play, something that the gaming industry as a whole has been moving towards this year. Just a little while ago, Google started talking about Stadia, its own game streaming service.
Now, Sony has already had PlayStation Now for a while, which is their game streaming option that lets you port PS4 and older games to either your console or your PC. in that way, Microsoft's and Google's platforms go a step further.
For both of them, the main aim seems to not handicap gamers by locking titles to certain platforms. Whereas a few years ago, the decision to buy a console or PC might hinge on what exclusive titles each offer, now it's all about the freedom of crossing boundaries. In fact with Stadia (and possibly xCloud when we know more), you might even be able to play the latest AAA titles on a simple smartphone.
That might be because these gaming giants are finally looking to newer markets like India. Of course, it's still impossible for us to get the sort of Internet speeds necessary for the likes of Stadia and xCloud, but that could be remedied with time.
Either way though, it's quite a time to be a gamer. Ever since consoles went past the first generation, couch co-operative play has dwindled into near-nothingness. Most of the time now, you need to get online in order to play with friends. That's more complicated and nigh impossible when they're using a PC or different console as you.
And that's just how gaming platforms are shaping up. The hardware involved however is also evolving at a blistering pace, to the point we may soon not be able to tell the difference between game and real life.
Take ray-tracing for instance, the new tech to beat in the game industry. It's powered by Epic's Unreal Engine and Nvidia's new RTX chips to completely change what you can expect to see on screen when you fire up your favourite title. What it essentially does is render each ray of light entering the scene from every angle, creating more realistic lighting effects.
After that came Project Spotlight, the product of a partnership between the Unreal Engine and 3Lateral. It's basically a completely new way to render CGI characters in game. Previously, it required capturing an actor's animations in video and then recreating it digitally in individual frames. With the new technology however, developers can just capture an actor's performance and map the character's face or body onto the actor in real time, with no post-production needed.
And now, announced yesterday as well, is Project Scarlett. That's the code name for Microsoft's latest Xbox console, that's yet to be detailed and named. What we do know however is that it's launching near the end of 2020 and will supposedly be four times as powerful as the Xbox One X. It needs to be, considering Microsoft is promising support for 8k 120 fps gameplay.
So to sum up, we're getting hyper-realistic characters in game, with authentic lighting and scenes, with shorter load-times, playable in higher than high-definition, and possibly across even basic devices thanks to cloud computing.
What a time to be alive!