It is well known that streamed PC cloud games are not available for Xbox gamers, but that could be about to change. According to a leaked email thread, Microsoft is planning to stream PC games over the cloud. The screenshots of this electronic communication come from internal emails revealed in conjunction with the now infamous FTC v. Microsoft case.
Currently, Microsoft streams games through Xbox Cloud Gaming. Now, the company is working on Azure servers to stream PC cloud games over Xbox Cloud Gaming. Xbox’s service allows gamers to play games on Xbox Game Pass through Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, mobile devices from Apple and Android. At present, it is limited to Xbox titles only.
The information has not yet been officially announced by the Microsoft Company or CEO. The information was gathered from internal Microsoft documents via the FTC lawsuit and shared. It was said that internal email chain was presented as evidence in the US Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit, as Microsoft endeavours to buy game publishing giant Activision Blizzard for streaming PC cloud games.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emailed Xbox Chief Phil Spencer, Kareem Choudhry, Head of Cloud Gaming at Microsoft, and Sarah Bond, Head of Xbox Creator Experience, in July 2021 after rumours appeared of Google hanging Stadia into a white-label Cloud Gaming Service for developers to operate the stream pc cloud games.
Internal emails from Microsoft CEO and other executives regarding streaming of PC cloud games.
The mail shows the subject “Stadia as a Cloud Service”. Satya Nadella sends an email to the team asking:
“Seems like they will have a leg up because their stuff is more generic Linux VMs + Network…. But I am assuming we will do the same for Game Pass PC – right?”
Spencer responded after an hour regarding the Stadia and confirmed that Microsoft is working on an Azure solution for PC game streaming:
“Google has the ability to reuse their Linux cloud hardware, and yes as we stream PC native games from an Azure GPU SKU we would have more re-use scenarios to recoup costs.”
The Head of Cloud Gaming at Microsoft, Kareem Choudhry, then replies saying:
“Phil is correct. Sarah [Bond] and I in partnership with Jason’s [Zander] team are driving a suitable Azure SKU… as part of a series that will serve the customer demand we see externally for IAAS and run our xCloud PC streaming stack,”
Spencer then responds with the following:
The move seems to have been as a way to compete with Stadia – which has now shut down. Google is in the process of just trying to turn Stadia into a Google Cloud SKU and do away with their first party consumer service.”
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Part of the Azure SKU was removed in the court document regarding streaming PC cloud games, but now it is clear that Microsoft was working on streaming PC games over the cloud in July 2021.
In the same internal email chain, Spencer came up with his thoughts on Stadia in July 2021, saying:
“I honestly think Google is in the process of just trying to turn Stadia into a Google Cloud SKU and do away with their first-party consumer service.”
This leaked email thread provides some fascinating insight into the inner working of Xbox as a company. What do you make of this information? Are you looking forward to potentially being able to steam PC cloud games to your Xbox console? Let us know in the comments section.
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