Microsoft And Sony Announce Team-Up To Grow Cloud Gaming And Entertainment

Cloud streaming just took a big leap with the announcement of a surprising team-up.

Microsoft revealed on Thursday that it would be coming together to work with Sony to help further develop cloud streaming. The work will specifically focus on Microsoft’s Project Azure and building out the system to provide more options for cloud gaming and content streaming.

Under this partnership, Sony will also have access to the tech Microsoft employs to improve its own infrastructure. One such area that would benefit is Sony’s download speeds, which Sony has received plenty of blowback for in the past. On the flip side, Microsoft has maintained a solid online base for its gaming platforms going back to the original Xbox.

On top of that, Sony would also be able to pull from Microsoft’s artificial intelligence to further improve user experiences on their own products.

Microsoft will also be getting a boon from Sony out of this deal as well. The biggest focus of this will be on the image sensors that Sony has developed for its products. Given the announcement that Microsoft was bringing back the Kinect for PC, implementing Sony sensors would provide a quality boost.

While not much more is known outside of these first details, Engadget does speculate that this kind of partnership could open other doors. The biggest of these could be cross-play features for games between the PlayStation and Xbox platforms.