A new Windows 10 app has been found in the Microsoft Store called Xbox Game Streaming, and it could be a sign of how next-gen Xbox Series X games will stream to Windows 10 PCs that wouldn’t usually be able to play games – like cheap laptops.
While the ability to stream Xbox games to mobile devices and PCs via the Xbox Console Streaming feature has been around since the beginning of 2020, the emergence of the new app, spotted by WalkingCat, seems like Microsoft could be looking to boost the streaming capabilities of its Project xCloud service to bring games for its upcoming Xbox Series X console to PCs.
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Xbox Game Streaming (Test App) (for game developers) https://t.co/HjmDkAj2r5 pic.twitter.com/wQ6KRodHFtApril 30, 2020
At the moment, Microsoft’s Project xCloud streaming service is being trialled on Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, but Microsoft did indicate that Windows 10 will be getting Xbox streaming at some point in 2020.
The existence of this app appears to confirm that Microsoft is working on this.
For devs only
The app seems to only be for developers. As the description in the Microsoft Store states, “Use the Xbox Game Streaming (Test App) to connect to your Xbox Developer Kit and optimize your game for Game Streaming.”
It also requires an Xbox Developer Kit.
Screenshots posted by Aggiornamenti Lumia give us a view of the interface of the app, which again seems geared towards developers.
With the Xbox Series X console launching later this year, it’s hoped that the service will be up and running, allowing people to stream next-gen games to their PCs.
While you should be able to play pretty much any Xbox Series X game natively in Windows 10 thanks to Microsoft’s Play Anywhere initiative, if you don’t have a powerful gaming PC, the Xbox Game Streaming app could be a way of playing next-gen games on budget devices, like cheap laptops.
The service should also be able to run on Windows 10 on ARM devices, which are lightweight laptops that again wouldn’t usually be able to play games. If you go travelling, for example, you wouldn’t need to bring your console – you could play your games on your laptop instead.
While you will probably still need to own an Xbox Series X console to stream the games, it could also use remote devices to run the games and stream them to your PC via the internet, much like Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now do.
Hopefully we’ll find out more about Microsoft’s streaming plans for the Xbox Series X soon.
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Via Neowin
