In a new livestream, Microsoft revealed that the Xbox Series X was built to support cross-play gaming. Microsoft has revealed several pieces of new information about the console this week, as it also confirmed how many games Xbox Series X Quick Resume supports and how fast its SSD is.
Speaking during a Game Stack Live panel, Rachel Card, part of the program management team of Microsoft Gaming, said that the "Xbox Series X was really built for this evolving landscape of gamers playing on multiple devices." Microsoft has been looking at what has been happening with technology "converging" across console, PC, and cloud and has built that into the Xbox Series X.
Card also said that Microsoft wants "gamers and developers to feel unconstrained in this next-generation of gaming" and that the best games are those created to be "better together." It has been confirmed that Cyberpunk 2077 will be available on Xbox Series X using a feature called Smart Delivery, which means players on Xbox One can get the game on the new console for free. No other Smart Delivery games have been announced, but it seems likely that more will be revealed before release.
For gamers and Xbox fans, this just means that more of the games that they enjoy will be available in the places that they want to play them. They won't always have to switch on their Xbox Series X to play their favorite game. Microsoft has done this in small ways in the past with offers such as Play Anywhere, which provided players with a game on PC and Xbox One wherever they had bought it.
However, it will be growing that much more with the Xbox Series X and with services like Project xCloud, its game streaming service. The panel also spoke about how exciting Project xCloud is and confirmed that it will launch in 2020, but no other details about its release were given.
Cross-play gaming and supporting a game on Xbox Series X, PC, and cloud also means more money for Microsoft and developers. Cross-play is hugely popular with gamers, and when Microsoft and Nintendo released a Minecraft cross-play trailer, criticizing Sony for not supporting cross-play on PS4, it won the company many fans. Building "better together" into the Xbox Series X will likely lead to more sales for the console and more subscribers to services such as Project xCloud.
Xbox Series X launches this holiday season.