Microsoft is at Work on Low Cost Streaming Xbox

During E3 earlier this summer reports were going around that Microsoft was working on a cloud gaming system. Additional details are surfacing on that rumored system today. One of the claims is that the system is called Scarlett Cloud and that streaming system is part of Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox strategy.

Reports claim that the next Xbox will come in two flavors with one a traditional game console where the games are processed locally. The other will be a lower-power system that streams games from the cloud and the assumption is that cloud will be powered by Microsoft Azure. The streaming console will have local processing capability to help reduce the latency that streaming games fight.

The big news is that the streaming Xbox is said to be much cheaper than the traditional console that does all the work for gaming locally reports TechCrunch. Consoles are becoming ever more expensive and a much cheaper device would be welcome by many gamers around the world.

Microsoft has been selling it’sconsole on slim margins for years and making its money on software and the Xbox ecosystem like Xbox Live Gold. Perhaps a cheaper streaming console would be better on margins for Microsoft and it would undoubtedly force gamers to pay a monthly fee to be able to access games since it will be streaming only.