Yesterday Microsoft unexpectedly the signing of a cooperation agreement in the field of "cloud solutions for games and artificial intelligence" with Sony, its main competitor in the game console market. It's not yet clear what exactly this alliance will lead to, but it's a pretty surprising development given that the Xbox and PlayStation platforms are de facto rivals, and have always competed in technology uniqueness and number of exclusive games in the past.
"In accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed by the parties, both companies plan to jointly develop future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their games and streaming services," Microsoft said in a press release. "In addition, both companies will explore the use of current Microsoft Azure data center solutions for Sony's gaming and streaming services."
In other words, it's entirely possible that the PlayStation 5 could feature Microsoft Azure cloud-based game streaming, and in addition, Sony and Microsoft could in theory pool their resources to create a single streaming solution that would be used on both Xbox and PlayStation.
Excited about the opportunities ahead with for us to pursue our mutual gaming ambitions and delight players around the world.
- Phil Spencer (@XboxP3)
“We are excited about the opportunities that are opening up for us and Sony to fulfill our shared gaming ambitions and delight gamers around the world,” wrote Phil Spencer,
head of Xbox, in his Twitter.
The move looks particularly interesting given Google's preparations to enter the gaming console market with its Stadia cloud platform. It is possible that the modern "titans" of the console business want to unite in order to better protect themselves from Google. At this point, it's hard to imagine what this will mean for gamers. The language of the press release is extremely vague, and the memorandum of understanding does not necessarily have any legal effect. Thus, although the companies have expressed their intention to cooperate, this may not lead to anything.
Recall that in October last year, Microsoft announced Project xCloud, a video game streaming service designed to make Xbox One games playable on computers, phones, and tablets. Meanwhile, Sony also has PlayStation Now, a service that allows people to stream PlayStation games to PS4, PS3, computers, smart TVs, and mobile devices. It is obvious that these products compete. On the other hand, a new collaboration could mean that in the future, Microsoft and Sony will be able to exchange technologies and, who knows, maybe even expand the library of games for each other.
Source: 3dnews.ru