Imagine being able to play the games you want, with the people you want, wherever you want. This is the Xbox's wish. Project xCloud is an important step in bringing us to that ambition. By leveraging the power of the cloud, we enable existing games to reach new audiences in new ways that would never have happened without changing your game.
Last year, we invited gamers and developers to start seeing cloud computing. With Project xCloud previews, we've made 90+ articles available for us to play and continue to grow capabilities in Azure regions worldwide. We see game players trying out many games, playing on multiple devices, and engaging in alternatives. From the beginning, we focused on the seamless experience of gamers playing their games and making it as easy as possible for developers to make their games available.
At GDC in 2019 we provided an opportunity to jumpstart how developers can improve their games so that they can broadcast by making them aware of the clouds. Since then we have learned a lot about what developers need and how to help them navigate their games in this new environment. By taking these courses, we focused on developing three key areas:
- Input. Gamers are playing on their mobile devices that want to be able to play anywhere, anytime without having a controller there. Support for touch control controls and traditional communication interfaces allow developers to easily provide the natural functionality of their games.
- Screen size. When games are transferred to a mobile device you may want to adjust the size of the text or other game elements to make it more playable. We now have APIs that provide third-party device features such as screen size that enable you to make that configuration accurately.
- Network. For the last 10 years, multiplayer games have worked hard to make sure gamers have a relevant and predictable experience even if not all players have the same network connection. The cloud monitoring game has the ability to understand the network the gamer is in and can make changes as needed. In addition to APIs to manage connection status and server locations, we provide tools that allow developers to simulate various network conditions.
As part of Game Stack Live, we recorded a set of interviews to share what we've learned over the past year, as well as developers who go through the process of building a better cloud experience for their class games. We've posted two new expressions that can be found here:
You can also find additional developer resources on how to get started with API documentation in Microsoft developer site .
These are the first steps in our exciting journey and we look forward to working closely with our partners to reach and grow the sports community in new ways.