Xbox Is Launching a New Division Focused on Cloud-Native Games

Xbox has announced the launch of the Cloud Gaming Organisation – a new gaming division that will focus on exclusive cloud-native titles for the Xbox cloud ecosystem. The project will be led by Kim Swift, who is best known as the project lead on Portal and designer on Left 4 Dead at Valve. Last year, Swift joined Microsoft as Senior Director of Xbox Cloud Gaming.

In a presentation video, Swift shared that the division's aim will be to "partner with world-class game development teams" to develop cloud-native games and bring new experiences to players. According to the presentation, the games will only be partially located on the company's servers. But some elements of projects like physics, AI, or lighting will be calculated remotely, which will free up processing power on consoles.

Swift also noted that cloud gaming is still a relatively young technology, and the Cloud Gaming Organisation is looking to invest in it now waiting for its further development. She explained it by comparing the company's approach to what Netflix started with when it was moving from a disc-mailing company to a streaming service. 

"At the time when Netflix was formed, internet speeds were not what they needed in order to send packets fast enough to support streaming, so instead they sent physical packets in the mail in the form of DVDs, and they had to wait for technology to catch up with their vision. But they were ready for it," Swift said.

According to Swift, the future of cloud gaming will fit into three separate categories: ubiquity, cloud AI and runtime calculations. She called ubiquity – the ability to stream games to any device regardless of whether the device can run them natively – "low hanging fruit for cloud content", while cloud AI will "advance what developers can do by using technology like machine learning, natural language processing, and reinforcement learning". As for runtime calculations, they can be used to "increase horsepower and runtime" on many parts of games including AI agents, destruction effects, graphics rendering, and randomization.

You can learn more about the Cloud Gaming Organisation by watching the presentation video. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.