Report: Microsoft still planning a low-cost, streaming-focused Xbox

At this year’s E3, Microsoft had a lot to say about its high-end Xbox One successor (code-named “Project Scarlett”) and about its previously announced (and newly demoed) Project Xcloud streaming gaming service. But the company was less forthcoming about long-standing reports of low-cost, streaming-focused Microsoft hardware that would bring Xcloud games to the TV easily.

In a new video, Thurrott’s Brad Sams (who has a strong track record when it comes to reporting insider information from Microsoft) says that the streaming box is “still being actively developed” inside Microsoft despite the continued public silence from the company itself. “I’m hearing this project has not been killed and is being actively worked on.”

According to Sams, Microsoft’s streaming hardware would “make the [streaming] gaming experience just a little bit better than if it was playing from a TV or something like that.” That’s because the low-end hardware would itself have a “marginal amount of compute [power]” that would allow it to handle basic gameplay elements like movement and collision detection locally, with minimal latency. “Everything else would just be streamed from Xcloud,” as Sams put it.