Home » Features » Interviews » Project xCloud Australian availability not yet confirmed for 2020
Interviews

Project xCloud Australian availability not yet confirmed for 2020

Microsoft’s X019 event in London confirmed that Project xCloud would head to a number of new regions in 2020, and naturally, Australian availability was a hot topic when Stevivor spoke to Microsoft’s Kareem Choudhry and Catherine Gluckstein afterward.

Sadly, neither Choudhry nor Gluckstein would confirm that Australian availability would be offered next year.

“The countries we’re announcing today won’t be the only countries that we’re rolling out preview,” Gluckstein said when asked about our country specifically. “We will have more news as we go into 2020.”

“‘How are you coming to Australia?’ might be a better question,” Choudhry added.

“In terms of the how, we develop a little bit of a playbook that’s, I’ll say, quite durable,” he continued. “We have been approached by multiple telco operators that are based in Australia who serve that market, so I think partnerships are going to be very important. I know data caps are a very prominent issue in the country and so we want to come to some… kind of mutual agreement with the mobile operators and the broadband providers.”

Stevivor asked Choudhry about Telstra specifically; we recently sighted an internal memo that stated Telstra was working with Microsoft in regards to console streaming.

“I can’t really comment with expertise on what Telstra is or isn’t saying,” Choudhry responded. “We have also enabled consumers to stream from the console’s they’ve already purchased out of their home. That’s a scenario where Telstra’s customers and our customers, they’re sharing. And so we’ve gone to many telcos regardless, of the project expo roll out to say, ‘Hey, you really want your customers to have a great experience for these scenarios and for those scenarios.’

“The thing that we’re doing in many markets — Australia included, I’ll say — at the aggregate Microsoft level is saying, ‘Hey, the real end goal here is to connect the Microsoft Azure data centers with a really good high-quality connection to your customers.’ And then there’s a whole suite of services and offerings that will benefit from that. And you know, [Project xCloud] game streaming is just one of them.”

We’ll have more on Australian Project xCloud availabilty as information comes to light.

Steve Wright attended X019 in London, England as a guest of Microsoft. Travel and accomodation were supplied by Microsoft.


This article may contain affiliate links, meaning we could earn a small commission if you click-through and make a purchase. Stevivor is an independent outlet and our journalism is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.

About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.