Wired:

Nearly a year ago, Microsoft executives acknowledged that the company was actively pursuing a cloud gaming service that would allow users to play Xbox games without an actual console. It wasn’t the only company racing toward the technology; everyone from chipmaker Nvidia to game publisher Electronic Arts to Sony’s PlayStation division has been working on the ability to stream games directly to customers. No downloads, no storage, no brawny processor requirements. Cloud gaming could untether games from the hardware we use to run them, and in doing so untether people from needing to buy ever-stronger, ever-pricer machines.

Now, on an ironically cloudless early October day, I’m visiting those same Microsoft execs at their headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to see the progress they’ve made. That progress includes a lot of caveats, and more than a little secrecy—but it also makes clear that Microsoft is aiming higher, and achieving more, than what some have thought.

Project xCloud, as the effort is known internally, is a company-wide push that leverages the expertise of a multitude of different teams. It tapped the secretive Microsoft Research division, which works on everything from quantum computing to AR/VR to genomics, to crack thresholds that probably wouldn’t have been cracked otherwise. It harnesses the power and ubiquity of Microsoft’s globe-spanning network of Azure data centers. And perhaps more importantly, it turns the living-room console—an immovable fixture of game culture since 1972—from an anchor into a hub.

I had heard rumors that this was Sony’s big plan for PlayStation 5, so I guess that the Cloud Arms Race is on.