Jonathan Hildebrandt, the Principal Program Manager at Microsoft’s Xbox team, announced recently that all Xbox Insiders of rings Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead in the United States and the UK will be able to try out the new Xbox Console Streaming feature.
Mr. Hildebrandt wrote: “Our vision at Xbox is to empower you to play Xbox games where you want when you want. Whether you’ve got just a few minutes to complete a race in Forza, or find yourself with an hour to get some online multiplayer in before the next train arrives, console streaming allows you to play your games on the go.”
With this said latest addition, Xbox gamers can play all the games that they have installed in their console - including the titles that they have available on their Xbox Game Pass - on their Android smartphone or tablet remotely from their primary Microsoft gaming console. Practically they’ll be streaming the games on their Android devices. Although Microsoft is traditionally known to exclude iOS devices from many of its products and services, there have been no announcements as to why there is no iOS compatibility.
It is worth noting that this particular feature shouldn’t be confused with the cloud-based gaming capabilities that Microsoft’s Project xCloud promises to provide for free.
The Xbox Console Streaming works with all the titles for both Xbox One and Xbox 360, with no limitations. However, there are requirements you need to follow to make it work. For instance, you need at least 4,75Mbps of uploading speed; Microsoft suggests 9Mbps though. Additionally, you need to have a network latency of 125ms or less. And of course, you’ll need to set your console to Instant-On. As for the Android device’s requirements, not much has been revealed in terms of recommended tech specs, but we do know that Android 6 and Bluetooth 4.0 are the minimum requirements.
As mentioned above, the streaming feature is only available to Xbox Insiders for now and even though it won’t take long before it’s released to all other users, we don’t have an exact date.
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Last Modified: Nov 7, 2019