Unveiled a little less than a year ago, the Microsoft cloud gaming service will be tested in October in 5G in South Korea thanks to an exclusive partnership with the operator SK Telecom.
The cloud gaming offer announced in October 2018 by Microsoft is taking shape. The US company announced on September 4, 2019 the launch of its Project xCloud in South Korea. Microsoft is partnering with South Korean operator SK Telecom for the occasion through an exclusive partnership. The main innovative feature of this agreement is that the service will be available via a 5G connection. The two companies, which spoke at a press conference in Seoul, "will cooperate to unveil the xCloud project in October".
They explain "hope to deliver a superior mobile player experience by combining SK Telecom's 5G competitiveness with Microsoft's strength in cloud and gaming." Specifically, "once the mmWave networks are deployed around the world, we should begin to see the reduction in latency that will benefit online gaming services," say the partners.
ONE MILLION SUBSCRIBERS TO THE 5G NETWORK
As early as next month, some SK Telecom customers will be able to test Project xCloud on the LTE and 5G networks. Microsoft is not giving more details at the moment, but announcements are expected at the Surface Conference to be held in New York City on October 2nd.
Microsoft is currently testing its service internally on smartphones and tablets, but is expected to expand it to other devices and geographies in the coming months. The Redmond-based company is well positioned to establish itself in the cloud gaming industry with its expertise in the infrastructure cloud with Azure, and its experience in video games with Xbox.
For its part SK Telecom - with which it had signed last May a memorandum of understanding to strengthen the global cooperation in 5G, artificial intelligence and the cloud - provides its infrastructure ... and an excellent playground with more than one million subscribers to the 5G network. We also note that South Korea is not a random choice. The country is the world's fourth largest video game market behind the United States, China and Japan.
