Project xCloud public testing is live – sign up to stream Gears 5 (and more) to your Android phone

Microsoft’s Project xCloud has kicked off with public testing of the game-streaming service, as was promised last month.

Four games will be available initially to be streamed to your Android device, and Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft, announced that the public preview has launched on Twitter.

Invitations are now rolling out to those who have previously registered their interest. Testers are being drawn from the UK and US, as well as Korea, and you can still sign up to participate as per this blog post.

As Spencer noted above, invitations will roll out gradually over the coming weeks, so you may have to wait a little while to get your chance. Keep those fingers crossed as ever…

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Previously, Microsoft has only tested Project xCloud internally, so now is the time to see how it performs out in the real world, which will obviously be quite a different kettle of streaming fish compared to in-house testing.

So what games do you get to play? As already stated, the preview of the game-streaming service will allow testers to partake of Gears 5, Halo 5: Guardians, Killer Instinct, and Sea of Thieves.

And naturally as time goes on, more games will be added to the public preview, but the above four games represent a good starting point.

Hardware requirements

You might be wondering what hardware is needed to get on board with Project xCloud. Your phone or tablet must be running Android 6.0 or better, and your device must support Bluetooth 4.0 in order to hook up a Bluetooth-enabled Xbox One Wireless Controller. You also need a Microsoft account.

Streaming can be achieved over Wi-Fi or cellular connections. Microsoft says it will be working with T-Mobile in the US and Vodafone in the UK throughout the public test to learn more about how gamers play on mobile networks, and presumably to better optimize the experience – but you can play using any mobile carrier.

The project is still in its early stages, but at least some of the feedback filtering onto online forums seems to be favorable, albeit noting some latency (though we have to take any comments with a suitably heavy dose of caution for now).

One post on Reddit described the experience thus: “If I could compare, the input latency would be like streaming your own console to a local PC.”

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Via The Verge