Microsoft Says It's "Continuing to Investigate" a Solution for xCloud and Data Caps

Microsoft announced its rollout of the xCloud streaming service yesterday, including a public test coming to 13 regions later this year. However, different areas of North America have differing access to internet and streaming capability, especially those with data caps.

In a meeting with reporters this morning we asked Mark Skwarski, senior product marketing manager at Xbox, about whether Microsoft was working on a way to bring xCloud to those in areas with limited data caps.

"It's something that we're continuing to investigate, we're continuing to learn from," says Skwarski. "We'll have more to share about that later on in the year."

A spokesperson for Microsoft followed up on Skwarski's response, emphasizing that Microsoft is focused on Wi-Fi connectivity as well as cell networks, which also carry data caps. He reiterated that there will be more to share later on in the year.

While streaming is a promising future for gamers who want to ditch their console, cloud computing isn't as enticing for those limited to a set amount of data on their Wi-FI plan. Microsoft's xCloud service is impressive when it works well. But a solution, whether scaling resolution or improved delivery, could be a game-changer, but it means finding a way to deliver games with dozens of gigabytes of data without consuming them in equal amount.

Stay tuned to our E3 2019 guide for all things going on at the big show this week.