Xbox game streaming to iPhone & iPad surfaces in setup screenshots

Microsoft is working on making cloud gaming one of a number of ways users can see high-fidelity gameplay from hardware incapable of rendering at those high resolutions. By rendering in the cloud and streaming to a user's device, this can allow for devices such as an iPhone or iPad to play an Xbox game, an idea Microsoft publicly demonstrated in March.

During E3, Microsoft hinted at personal xCloud servers that effectively ran from a console and streamed over a home network, effectively allowing gameplay from anywhere within the house or apartment where the network could be accessed. According to screenshots shared with WindowsCentral, it may be happening quite soon.

An image for "Console Streaming" settings on an Xbox includes the text "Turn your Xbox One into your own personal xCloud server. Stream your entire Xbox One library, including games from Xbox Game Pass, to your mobile device."

A second image advises of setup completion, and advises users to continue on the Preview app of their mobile device, and to use a Bluetooth-enabled controller. This seems to be similar to the demonstration of streaming-to-mobile from March, which used an Xbox One controller connected to an Android device via Bluetooth to play a game.

If Microsoft is to announce the ability to stream directly from a console, rather than their existing effort for cloud-based gaming, it is likely to do so during the currently-ongoing Gamescom event in Germany.

In-home game streaming isn't a new concept, as it has been around for quite some time in the PlayStation 4 and from Mac or PC with Steam. In both cases, gameplay was recently enabled to be streamed to a mobile app, albeit previously usable with other hardware, and does not necessarily require the use of a secondary controller for gameplay.