Microsoft may offer two very different Xbox consoles at the same time — with the same games.
At E3 2018, Microsoft revealed that the next Xbox game consoles were already underway — and that the company would offer a cloud gaming service, too.
Notice how I say « consoles, » not « console »? That’s because there will be two very, very different Xbox consoles coming to market in 2020, according to alleged insider info from Thurrott.com .
One of them will reportedly be a traditional high-power Xbox game console, while the other — codename « Scarlett Cloud » — will be a lower-powered device designed to stream games from Microsoft’s servers, instead of playing locally from a hard drive or disc.
Traditionally, such cloud gaming services mean you need a fantastic internet connection and/or nearby servers in order to avoid lag. But Thurrott.com reports that Microsoft has hit upon an intriguing technique to reduce latency: It’ll « slice » each game so that part of it runs in the cloud, part of it runs locally, and Microsoft’s servers can stitch it all together.
« The cloud console will have a limited amount of [capacity to] compute locally for specific tasks like controller input, image processing, and importantly, collision detection, » writes reporter Brad Sams.
That could make games feel like they’re reacting to a player input right away — even if it takes a (fraction of a) sec for some of the graphics to catch up.
This actually isn’t a new idea. Amazon experimented with hybrid cloud games back in 2014. Take a look at the trailer below for a game called The Unmaking designed for Amazon Fire tablets:
See the giant crossbow / ballista? That’s running locally on an Amazon Fire tablet, so you can aim and fire without lag. But early Amazon Fire tablets didn’t have nearly enough processing power to render the giant armies in the background, so those are generated by remote servers.
Sams reports that Microsoft is planning to offer the exact same games to Xbox owners, regardless of whether they’re playing with a high-performance console or a hybrid between a lower-performance console and cloud servers.
Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft is far from the only company working on a cloud gaming service, by the way.
