Despite xCloud game streaming, Microsoft thinks there will always be a need for consoles

With "Project xCloud" and Google Stadia on the horizon, many gamers have been questioning the future of defended hardware that sits under your Tv. While Google thinks that it's non necessary – despite Stadia'southward known 166-millisecond input lag – Microsoft thinks differently.

Our very own Jez Corden managed to interview Microsoft's Gaming Corporate Vice President Mike Ybarra and Partner Manager of Program Management Jason Ronald to find out more than about the company's vision for the future of gaming beyond Xbox, Project xCloud, and PC. The following excerpt discusses the conversation nearly defended hardware.

'I believe there will always be a demand for local hardware,' Ybarra said, referring to home consoles. 'There'll be a need for cloud computing as well. We need to give gamers the choice to play local, to play via the deject, to mix it. I'm going to do everything. It'south most giving them the liberty, and the choice to game the mode they want. If that means local hardware, correct? We're there.' Ronald impressed that the whole point of streaming is to entreatment to gamers who might not want a panel at all, not to simply replace consoles. 'At the aforementioned time, we're trying to entreatment to two billion gamers beyond the world. And everybody plays different kinds of games, some people prefer console, some people prefer PC, there volition be customers that will not want to take either device and xCloud streaming is a nifty solution for them.

Given current streaming engineering science and the hope of consoles fifty-fifty more than powerful than Stadia, it'south understandable why many gamers would want to purchase those devices. Additionally, given the fact that y'all never truly ain your titles if they tin't be downloaded, that's another reason to continue traditional consoles alive.

With that said, it's up to gamers to determine where they want to play. There's no fashion to predict what will happen in the future, merely this is a transformative period which will alter gaming as we know it.

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