Windows 10: Project xCloud: Choice for How and When You Play

Brink · Mar 12, 2019

Back in October we formally unveiled our work on Project xCloud: a vision for game-streaming technology that will complement our console hardware and give gamers more choices in how and where they play. Since then, we’ve been heads down and hard at work, preparing to launch the first public trials later this year. At the same time, we wanted to stay transparent about our progress and chat with the Inside Xbox team, showing you the first public demo of the technology in action.

One of the great developments in entertainment over the last decade is how easy and common it’s become to read, listen, or watch your digital content (often via streaming). We’ve seen this revolutionize the way people experience music and video, letting them dive in from wherever they wish and on whichever device is most convenient to them at the time. Applying this approach to the world of video games is a more challenging endeavor. Games by their very nature are interactive entertainment. – And that interactivity is a substantial difference from watching TV or listening to music. We now find ourselves at an inflection point, where current technology can deliver a console-quality experience with the right cloud infrastructure, content and community in place.

We’re developing Project xCloud not as a replacement for game consoles, but as a way to provide the same choice and versatility that lovers of music and video enjoy today. We’re adding more ways to play Xbox games. We love what’s possible when a console is connected to a 4K TV with full HDR support and surround sound – that remains a fantastic way to experience console gaming. We also believe in empowering gamers to decide when and how to play.

We believe in the future where you will be able to seamlessly access content on your phone, tablet or another connected device. Imagine that you just began a single-player campaign the day before heading out of town and want to keep playing from where you left off. Maybe you just need a few more minutes to wrap up that weekly challenge before you head into work, but your bus just won’t wait. Or maybe the living-room television is occupied by someone else in the household when you arranged to play co-op with your friends.

While our vision for the technology is complementary to the ways in which we use consoles today, Project xCloud will also open the world of Xbox to those who may not otherwise own traditional, dedicated gaming hardware. True console-quality gaming will become available on mobile devices, providing the 2 billion-plus gamers around the world a new gateway to previously console- and PC-exclusive content. We can achieve this vision with the global distribution of Microsoft’s datacenters in 54 Azure regions and the advanced network technologies developed by the team at Microsoft Research. We’re excited about our ability to deliver a best-in-class global streaming technology.

Project xCloud is an integral part of our vision for placing you the gamer at the center of your experience, giving you more choice in how and when you play. We’re excited to share more about the technology and our progress in the coming months, including the first details of how and when you can help us test it in real-world scenarios later this year.

There’s so much more to come, so stay tuned. We’ll be in touch.
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Source: Project xCloud: Choice for How and When You Play - Xbox Wire

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:)

Spider Tiger · Mar 12, 2019

xCloud,Project Stream, Atlas e GeForce Now are valid only in the US?

I have a problem I can not download the beta of Project Stream because are valid only in the US.

I wonderif for others: as project Atlas and Ge Force now always gives this problem, especially for xCloud, to play on Windows and or Xbox

Brink · Mar 12, 2019

Project xCloud game streaming service announced by Microsoft

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The future of gaming is a world where you are empowered to play the games you want, with the people you want, whenever you want, wherever you are, and on any device of your choosing. Our vision for the evolution of gaming is similar to music and movies — entertainment should be available on demand and accessible from any screen. Today, I’m excited to share with you one of our key projects that will take us on an accelerated journey to that future world: Project xCloud.

Today, the games you play are very much dictated by the device you are using. Project xCloud’s state-of-the-art global game-streaming technology will offer you the freedom to play on the device you want without being locked to a particular device, empowering YOU, the gamers, to be at the center of your gaming experience.

Content and community

Ultimately, Project xCloud is about providing gamers — whether they prefer console or PC — new choices in when and where they play, while giving mobile-only players access to worlds, characters and immersive stories they haven’t been able to experience before.

To realize this vision, we know we must make it easy for developers to bring their content to Project xCloud. Developers of the more than 3,000 games available on Xbox One today, and those building the thousands that are coming in the future, will be able to deploy and dramatically scale access to their games across all devices on Project xCloud with no additional work.

About Project xCloud

Scaling and building out Project xCloud is a multi-year journey for us. We’ll begin public trials in 2019 so we can learn and scale with different volumes and locations. Our focus is on delivering an amazing added experience to existing Xbox players and on empowering developers to scale to hundreds of millions of new players across devices. Our goal with Project xCloud is to deliver a quality experience for all gamers on all devices that’s consistent with the speed and high-fidelity gamers experience and expect on their PCs and consoles.

We’ve enabled compatibility with existing and future Xbox games by building out custom hardware for our datacenters that leverages our years of console and platform experience. We’ve architected a new customizable blade that can host the component parts of multiple Xbox One consoles, as well as the associated infrastructure supporting it. We will scale those custom blades in datacenters across Azure regions over time.

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We are testing Project xCloud today. The test runs on devices (mobile phones, tablets) paired with an Xbox Wireless Controller through Bluetooth, and it is also playable using touch input. The immersive nature of console and PC games often requires controls that are mapped to multiple keys, buttons, sticks and triggers. We are developing a new, game-specific touch input overlay that provides maximum response in a minimal footprint for players who choose to play without a controller.

A game runs via Project xCloud with a prototype touch overlay.

Cloud game-streaming is a multi-faceted, complex challenge. Unlike other forms of digital entertainment, games are interactive experiences that dynamically change based on player input. Delivering a high-quality experience across a variety of devices must account for different obstacles, such as low-latency video streamed remotely, and support a large, multi-user network. In addition to solving latency, other important considerations are supporting the graphical fidelity and framerates that preserve the artist’s original intentions, and the type of input a player has available.

Microsoft — with our nearly 40 years of gaming experience starting with PC, as well as our breadth and depth of capabilities from software to hardware and deep experience of being a platform company — is well equipped to address the complex challenge of cloud game-streaming. With datacenters in 54 Azure regions and services available in 140 countries, Azure has the scale to deliver a great gaming experience for players worldwide, regardless of their location.

Developers and researchers at Microsoft Research are creating ways to combat latency through advances in networking topology, and video encoding and decoding. Project xCloud will have the capability to make game streaming possible on 4G networks and will dynamically scale to push against the outer limits of what’s possible on 5G networks as they roll out globally. Currently, the test experience is running at 10 megabits per second. Our goal is to deliver high-quality experiences at the lowest possible bitrate that work across the widest possible networks, taking into consideration the uniqueness of every device and network.

We are looking forward to learning with you during our public trials next year and sharing more details as we continue on this journey to the future of gaming with you at the center. Stay tuned!

Thanx,
Kareem
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Source: Project xCloud: Gaming with you at the center - The Official Microsoft Blog

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MomentoMoir · Mar 12, 2019

Cheap Photo box that will get the job done

WEll i took on this project for PP hes a hardware reviewer and wants to get the professional looking pics for the Pc parts

Materials:

Big cardboard box

a razor

white material 3 yards

cone lights

stapler

medical tape

pvc pipe about 6 inches longer than your box

white paint any cheap finger paint would work

the project I'm guessing will cost me $30 if it works out properly
I will post pictures and step by step as i do it

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