Microsoft's Arcadia may be games streaming tech

Microsoft is quietly working away on something called Arcadia, and there's reason to believe this might be its long-awaited streaming games service.

The ever-vigilant Zdnet suggests Arcadia is a streaming games service, having been tipped off to the project by a job ad mentioning the code name.

According to the site's anonymous (but previously reliable) sources, Arcadia is "the technology being developed by a new streaming team in Microsoft's Operating Systems Group".

"The Arcadia technology replaces the discontinued 'Rio' game-streaming technology which Microsoft demonstrated at the company's annual meeting in September 2013," the site claims.

Build on the Azure cloud, Arcadia will stream both games and apps, possibly but not very probably including Android apps, to Windows and Xbox devices. It is likely to be monetised in some way, and may deliver to Android and iOS devices, too.

This all makes a lot of sense as Microsoft has no answer to Sony's PlayStation Now, and has huge holes in its PC and Windows Phone gaming ecosystems. We also know Microsoft has been plugging away at the problem of low-latency cloud-based gaming in a project called DeLorean, but it may be too early in the project's lifespan to expect a reveal soon.

In any case, it'll be very interesting to see what Microsoft has to say at its upcoming Windows 10 event, where it has promised to talk about the future of gaming on PCs, and where Xbox boss Phil Spencer will be an important speaker.

Thanks, Gamespot.