Game-streaming is set to disrupt the industry significantly as 5G networks and devices proliferate. The technology provides a rare opportunity for developers to reach upstream, directly to customers - circumventing Steam or the app store. And for platform owners, like Xbox, its an even bigger opportunity to grow their communities with Netflix-like catalogs of content their subscribers can play on any device and anywhere.

As head of cloud gaming at Xbox I led the development of a global Gaming-as-a-Service (GaaS) platform for Microsoft. The consumer facing component of the service is Project xCloud - a game streaming service designed to work across consoles, PCs, and mobile devices.

xCloud research teams are creating ways to combat latency via advanced network techniques combined with video encoding and decoding making game streaming viable on 4G networks and building custom hardware for its datacenters, so that existing and future Xbox games will be compatible with the xCloud service.

Public trials of xCloud begin in 2019 to learn to scale with different volumes and locations and to test the service with Xbox wireless controllers connected to consoles, mobile devices, and PCs.