At this year's GDC, there's one topic ruling the conversation; streaming services, and the arrival of Google as a player in what's now become a very tangible space. How long ago it now seems from the comically messy launch of OnLive, or from when Microsoft's 'power of the cloud' mantra was a stick used to beat it during the difficult early years of the Xbox One.
Now it's no joke, and Google's imminent keynote where it lays out its plans for its own service feels like a pivotal moment in a streaming future that now seems inevitable. Microsoft has already made its own motions, of course, with the announcement of its own xCloud service last year, headed up by corporate VP of gaming cloud Kareem Choudhry, who we got to catch up with on the eve of Google's big show.
"In the gaming division, our goal is to reach everyone on the planet, to enable them to play the games they want when they want on the devices they want," he tells us in a swish Microsoft office in downtown San Francisco, just a block away from where the Google keynote will be taking place. "Our strategy is shifting from one that's console-centric, where step one is please buy our console and steps two through to 58 are things accessed off the console. We're starting to put the customer at the centre of what we do, and recognise that they have multiple devices, multiple lifestyles, then bring it all together in a cohesive way."
