Microsoft is working on a game streaming service called Arcadia

by Mark Tyson on 17 December 2014, 09:35

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), PC

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Microsoft is reportedly gearing up to expand its video game-based services and is said to be working on a streaming app and game service codenamed "Arcadia". This information comes via sources of the reliable Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet and a job vacancy listing at Redmond.

Arcadia, also the name of the United Earth Government Colony in the Halo universe, is being developed by a new streaming team based inside Microsoft's Operating Systems Group. It will replace the discontinued Rio game-streaming technology which was demonstrated back in September 2013.

Arcadia looks set to be built on the foundation established by Microsoft's Azure cloud. It is still early on in its development stage so it is unlikely to be formally introduced by the company just yet, meaning that we probably will not be seeing the service unveiled during Microsoft's upcoming Windows 10 reveal event on 21 January. A job post listed by Microsoft backs up the ZDNet source information, as the company is seeking a senior software engineer with explicit mention of the Arcadia codename.

Cross platform possibilities

The speculated purpose for the Arcadia service is games, specifically targeted to run Xbox games remotely and also stream them to phones or tablets. This is rather similar to rival Sony's remote-play that is capable of in-home streaming from the PS4, as well as the beta PlayStation Now service. With Microsoft's efforts in promoting cross-platform integration, the report suggests that the Arcadia streaming service could potentially be able to run on non-Windows devices, or to allow users to make use of Arcadia to utilise Android apps on Windows devices.

The news that Microsoft is hard at work developing a capable game-streaming service might be appealing, at least for fans of its devices. Some companies and analysts see cloud gaming as the future of digital games consumption, and Microsoft certainly seems to believe that its project could become a leader in that space. It actually refers to Arcadia, in the above linked job posting, as "the next big thing for Microsoft".



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Posted by Roobubba - Wed 17 Dec 2014 10:01
Am I missing something? I can't imagine why streaming games should be a goal. Maybe because I'm an fps pc gamer, I just can't see how you can get anything like an acceptable data rate and input rate. And if you could, would you want to be limited to play only when online?

very confused.
Posted by shaithis - Wed 17 Dec 2014 10:09
Perhaps they have a great vision but I see it as a dead end.

If connections had progressed faster we might have been in a situation where it would have been a great idea (at least for a while) but we are probably about to see some large bumps in computing power and especially in FLOPS/watt….making game streaming a bit pointless in so many situations.

Although I would guess it's more about controlling the content and possibly a future where they can sell you a 300-400ukp console that is nothing more than a thin client.
Posted by Tpyo - Wed 17 Dec 2014 10:19
re: Shaithis - kill the second-hand game market by not selling you the game itself or allowing it to run locally and sell it to end users as a favour to them so they don't have to worry about hardware upgrades.
Re: Pricing - hopefully if they did go this way, one of the other selling points would be the cut-down/cheaper hardware they could sell you relative to what you'd need to run stuff locally. I realise that ‘fair’ pricing wouldn't come into it, but it would behove them to flog it cheap to tie you into their ecosystem (leave and you lose all the games) but make money via the subscription model (X-box live! style, only this time they can justify it as doing the heavy lifting behind the games you run/ storing all your films/music to stream to your thin client).
Posted by ZaO - Wed 17 Dec 2014 14:07
Roobubba
Am I missing something? I can't imagine why streaming games should be a goal. Maybe because I'm an fps pc gamer, I just can't see how you can get anything like an acceptable data rate and input rate. And if you could, would you want to be limited to play only when online?

very confused.

Here's how I see it from the point of view of some companies that want to use this tech:

* This will crush piracy, as no one can even get their hands on the software to make pirate versions of it.

* We'll have total control over how and when users can use the software.

* We'll be able to put even more paywalls between the user and their software. Infact, let's scrap buying a permanent license for software. It's always rented temporarily now. Subscription plans galore :whip::D:naughty::innocent::laugh:



Here's how I see it from hackers point of view:

* They can't keep anything from us. If it's connected to the WWW, we'll take it and do what we want with it!



Here's how I see it from my point of view:

* This is the inevitable future. It's undeniable that piracy somewhat drives this (but it's not the only cause. There is more control, and potentially more money available to the software owners this way).

* It's not necessarily a bad thing. As long as you have a good internet connection, you will no longer have to spend much on Pc hardware to run whatever games and apps you like, right? I dunno..

* I will miss having things locally on my computer. I'll also be screwed without a net connection.

* Nevermind. A whole new market of underdogs will open up. While all the big software Devs are using this streaming stuff only, we'll see new leaders in the traditional software market :)
Posted by Saracen - Wed 17 Dec 2014 23:29
Some companies and analysts see cloud gaming as the future of digital games consumption, and Microsoft certainly seems to believe that its project could become a leader in that space. It actually refers to Arcadia, in the above linked job posting, as “the next big thing for Microsoft”.
Maybe cloud gaming is the future of digital games, and maybe it's MSs “next big thing”. I couldn't say. I can say my interest is somewhere between infinitesimal and zero.

It may be an incorrect assumption, but I'd guess this fits in with MSs plans to “monetatise” Windows, and that somewhere along the line, that involves a subscription. Well, it may well be a big thing, but for me, oh hell no. No way. I'll give up gaming entirely first, if it comes to it. But it won't. There'll always (IMHO) be a market for my type of gaming, even if it's small. I'll be there, or nowhere, in gaming.

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