Xbox Cloud Gaming, also simply known as Xbox Cloud, is a cloud gaming service as part of Xbox offered by Microsoft Gaming. Initially released in beta testing in November 2019, the service later launched for subscribers of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on September 15, 2020. Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming is provided to subscribers at no additional cost.[3] Xbox Cloud Gaming operates by linking the device to a remote server in the cloud.[4]
Development
The ideas for the cloud service came within Microsoft around 2016, around the same time that Kareem Choudhry developed the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility for the Xbox One. As his team developed this solution, Choudhry also had the idea if they could provide these games without having need of a console, and got Spencer's go-ahead to start a small team to determine the feasibility of cloud gaming. The technology was deemed successful enough at around the time of Xbox Game Pass's introduction that Microsoft assembled a larger team to build up the cloud gaming platform.