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Microsoft just opened up the Xbox Console Streaming preview to all Xbox Insiders

Now everyone can try playing their Xbox One games on an Android phone

Microsoft has been slowly rolling out access to its Xbox Console Streaming for Xbox One since late last year, but that has all just changed. Now, anyone who’s in the Xbox Insider Program can check out the Xbox Console Streaming preview.

There, are still some limitations, as mentioned in Microsoft’s announcement. First of all, you’ll have to be a part of the Xbox Insider program, but anyone with an Xbox account can sign up to join the program. The Xbox Console Streaming app is also currently only available on Android (6.0 or higher) phones and tablets, so iPhone and iPad users are out of luck.

There are some limits to the regions supported, as Microsoft states the preview is only available in Xbox One-support countries. Previously, the preview had only been available in the United States and the United Kingdom, but now it’s expanded to many regions throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. You can see Microsoft’s complete list here.

The Xbox Console Streaming preview will let you play any of your Xbox One games on your Android device. It does this by sending a video stream from your Xbox to your phone or tablet, and sending your controller inputs back to your console. Naturally, that means the service will also require you to have pretty fast and stable internet. Your upstream connection will need to be at least 4.75Mbps (or ideally 9Mbps). Your phone’s downstream connection should ideally be at least 10Mbps as well.

The service will let you play your Xbox One games, including Xbox Game Pass titles, on your phone or tablet whether you’re elsewhere in your house on Wi-Fi or using a mobile network hundreds of miles away from your Xbox. Though, of course, distance can introduce latency and reduce the quality of the experience.

If you’re interested in trying out the preview, we have all the steps you need to know on how to set up Xbox Console Streaming.

It seems Microsoft is definitely gearing up for streaming to be even more mainstream by the time it launches the Xbox Series X later this year. It definitely can’t rest with competitors such as Google Stadia and a possible Steam cloud-gaming service coming from Valve.

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Mark Knapp
The impending Xbox 360 Store closure makes me wary of Game Pass’ future
The Xbox logo.

I'm an avid Xbox Game Pass user, often trying almost every game that comes to the service and closely following the games coming to and leaving the service each month. Following some recent announcements by Microsoft, though, I've been thinking a lot more about something else about Xbox Game Pass and Microsoft's current digital-focused Xbox storefronts and ecosystem: what happens when it all goes away?
Microsoft announced last week that it will shut down the Xbox 360 Store in July 2024. After that day, it will be impossible to buy games, movies, or TV shows digitally on the Xbox 360 store; it's just like what happened with the 3DS and Wii U eShops earlier this year. That announcement also came not long after Microsoft revealed it would replace Xbox Live Gold with Xbox Game Pass Core in September. With these changes, Microsoft is stamping out any support or focus its giving to the Xbox 360's era as a platform. As someone who grew up mostly playing Xbox 360, seeing these things I grew up with go away is saddening. It's also making me think about the day this will eventually happen to Xbox Game Pass or the store on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

Frankly, I'm not as concerned that Microsoft is going to do it anytime soon. Microsoft has given no indication that it plans on abandoning Xbox Game Pass. It's a really successful subscription service heavily integrated into all of its current platforms, there are titles confirmed to launch day one on it into 2024 and beyond, and Xbox initiatives like Play Anywhere and Smart Delivery ensure that at least some version of most Xbox games are available on other platforms. While I expect it to be the primary part of Microsoft's gaming strategy over the next decade, as someone who mainly played Xbox 360 growing up and is now seeing its storefront and subscription service go away, I'm now thinking about what the end of the Game Pass era will look like.
These recent actions have indicated that Microsoft will eventually be willing to do the same to the storefronts and subscription service we're currently using. Even after the backlash PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox all faced from these announcements, Sony is the only one that has backtracked its plans to close down older digital storefronts, at least temporarily. Xbox Game Pass is the current hotness for Microsoft, but what happens come the day it isn't? A lot more games are digital-only or tied to a subscription this generation, and those are the games most at risk of being lost if a digital storefront shuts down.
What happens to the Xbox console versions of games like Pentiment or Immortality on Xbox once Xbox Game Pass and the current iteration of the Xbox Store are shuttered? Yes, they can be played on PC, but the Xbox console version will be lost forever. And right now, it doesn't seem like Microsoft has any publicly shared plans to permanently preserve those experiences, nor has it done so for all of the Xbox 360 digital games going away. Game preservation is a significant problem facing the game industry, and Microsoft has just made a move showing that it's on the wrong side of that effort. 

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Microsoft will shut down the Xbox 360 Store next year
An image of backward compatible Xbox 360 games.

Microsoft announced today that it plans to shut down the Xbox 360 in 2024, an extremely disappointing move that's bad for game preservation.

The Xbox 360 Store, also known as the Xbox Live Marketplace, has been present on Microsoft's second game console in some form ever since it launched in 2005. In recent years, storefront shut down for older systems have become more common. The 3DS and Wii U eShops went offline in March despite player anger, while Sony planned to shut down the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita storefronts in 2021 before reversing that decision because of the backlash. Regardless, the loss of any storefront is a dour move for the video game industry, as some games are exclusively available to them and will be lost forever when the store goes offline.

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All Xbox home screens are getting a PS5-style makeover starting today
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The Xbox home screen is getting a face-lift. Starting today, Microsoft will begin rolling out a freshly redesigned Xbox home interface across Xbox One, Series S, and Series X consoles.

If you're an Xbox owner, you're probably used to the consoles' current design that features a row of recently used apps at the top of the screen and a list of widgets below. Microsoft says it looked at user data and feedback from the Xbox community to create a redesigned experience that's more focused on discovery.

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