The coronavirus pandemic has presented gaming companies with a number of difficulties over the last few months. While many were quick to shift to working-from-home, that hasn’t always proven to be an easy transition. Fortunately, it seems that Project xCloud is making it easier for game developers to access Xbox development kits remotely. These development kits are designed to be used in an office environment, but changes have been made in order to improve access and speed up the development process. In a new blog post from Allan Poore, Project xCloud’s partner group program manager discussed the ways in which developers are benefiting from xCloud.
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“We’ve set out to solve these remote access challenges by re-allocating our Project xCloud resources; going beyond mobile and creating a PC app experience for developers that runs a low-latency 60fps gaming experience that allows for continued game development,” said Poore. “By giving developers access to our PC Content Test App (PC CTA) they can remotely connect to their Xbox Development Kits from their PC, allowing them to test, play and iterate as if they were in the office. It also prevents them from having to download daily builds to local hardware in the home, which can often take hours.”
According to Poore, a number of third party developers have responded quite well to the changes, including Ninja Theory, Infinity Ward, and Eidos Montreal.
“xCloud will give the opportunity to dev teams and also internal and external QA teams to put their hands on our latest game builds from everywhere minutes after their release. By allowing the teams to connect remotely to their devkits and take advantage of the high bandwidth LAN network from our various office locations, xCloud will also add another layer of security as the content created will stay on our corporate network,” said Guillaume Le-Malet of Eidos Montreal.
Naturally, this all bodes well for the future of games on Microsoft’s platforms, including the Xbox Series X. As of right now, all indications are that the platform and its games will release on time this year, and it seems like a part of that might be owed to the Project xCloud team. While these times are difficult for everyone, it’s certainly impressive to see the ways in which companies are evolving. Gaming has proven to be an escape for many over the last few months, and the efforts of video game companies to adapt will allow gamers to continue finding that escape.
Are you interested in the ways that developers are adapting to the pandemic? Let us know in the comments or share your thoughts directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!
