Microsoft plans to add PC games to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service to compete directly with services like Nvidia's GeForce Now, according to internal emails from the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit against the company.
The Xbox Game Pass subscription includes a number of PC games, but you must download the files locally and play them on your gaming PC.
Microsoft currently exclusively streams Xbox games live via Xbox Cloud Gaming, using its own Azure servers to live stream PC games via the subscription service.
The Xbox cloud game streaming system currently relies on custom Xbox hardware, which are servers made from the same chipsets as the Xbox family.
In order to deliver modern PC gaming, the company needs to upgrade some of its Azure cloud platform hardware.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an email in July 2021 about Google's Stadia game streaming platform after rumors spread that the company intended to turn it into a platform for developing services.
The executives discussed Google's ability to leverage the power of cloud computing to provide Stadia services to external companies, in addition to Microsoft's ability to compete as a major player in the field of cloud computing.
Emails indicate that Nadella wants it and that his management team has been working on it for at least two years.
“Google has an advantage because its tools are more diverse, but we will probably do the same thing,” Nadella said. Xbox head Phil Spencer quickly responded and offered his opinion on Stadia. Microsoft is working on a solution. Streaming computer games. clouds.
“Google has the ability to reuse its cloud hardware running Linux, and when we stream PC games over Azure, we have more reuse scenarios to offset the costs,” Spencer said, referring to publishing tools for developers. Publisher of Google services.
Apparently, in July 2021, Microsoft was working on a solution to stream PC games via the cloud. Work on Xbox cloud gaming at the company has slowed over the past year.
Microsoft had previously promised that Xbox Cloud Gaming would support users' existing game libraries by the end of 2022, but that did not happen.
The company also abandoned its plans to launch a special subscription version of Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Earlier this year, Microsoft released some additional guidance on delivering PC games via Xbox Cloud Gaming.
British mobile company EE has signed a 10-year deal with Microsoft to provide EE customers with Xbox games on PC, but EE does not currently offer a streaming service.
Microsoft has publicly tested mouse and keyboard support for Xbox Cloud Gaming for games on the Xbox platform.
In July 2021, Spencer expressed his thoughts on Stadia, saying: “I think Google wants to make Stadia a cloud service for everyone and move away from mainstream services.” Google is a strong and aggressive competitor, but frankly it surprises me that they haven't made any progress on Stadia. “Our main competitors so far are NVIDIA and GeForce Now, but we are keeping a close eye on Google and Amazon.”
Google announced that it would shut down its Stadia service in January 2023, about a year after Spencer sent the email.