Tech powerhouse Microsoft (News - Alert) has announced the company is currently developing hardware that will support cloud-based video game streaming, similar to subscription services like Netflix.
With the new hardware, the company hopes to support the long-anticipated service of subscription-based gaming, where customers can pay a monthly fee for access to a selected library of titles with Xbox Game Pass. Though streaming has been available for TV and movies for over a decade, video games pose a bigger challenge due to the massive digital storage requirements and bandwidth required to run successfully.
Microsoft has cemented itself as a leader in the gaming space, with Xbox and Sony’s Playstation being the preferred at-home consoles for decades. Though still a dominant player, major competitors like Amazon and Google (News - Alert) are stepping into the arena, with the recent release of cloud-gaming platforms Stadia(Google) and Luna (Amazon). These platforms have not reached the popularity of Xbox and Playstation, but game streaming may soon make these new options more attractive to consumers in the coming years.
It is clear that Microsoft sees a bright future ahead for the gaming industry. The company recently purchased Bethesda, one of the most popular game developers in the world, for 7.5 billion. Representatives of Microsoft have also claimed the company is working on a solution, similar to Roku or Amazon Fire Stick that would allow plug-in capabilities that would permit gaming on virtually any screen or device.
Edited by Maurice Nagle