Your Galaxy S20 might become a portable Xbox

Between the reveal of four new phones and a pair of wireless headphones during Samsung’s Unpacked event today it was easy to miss some of the minor announcements made on stage.

One curious thing that might be glanced over by many is the cooperation between Samsung and Microsoft to bring Xbox games to Galaxy devices. The announcement was focused on the port of the game Forza Street, which will be available on the Galaxy Store (not the Play Store!).

However, at the end of this part of the presentation, the speaker said that this is just the first step of the combined efforts of Samsung and Xbox to take gaming on smartphones to the next level.

Using the Galaxy S20’s 5G capabilities (for low lag) and Microsoft’s experience with gaming platforms, the two companies want to bring “premium cloud-based game streaming experience” to Galaxy devices.

Now, the skeptics among you are probably already frowning after reading the words “cloud-based” and we understand that. Google’s game streaming service Stadia is not off to a good start. But streaming games will eventually become a viable alternative to on-device computing and some hiccups along the way are just part of the process.

Exactly what will be Xbox and Samsung’s solution we’ll apparently find out later this year, without any further specifics for the time being. Perhaps with the release of the Galaxy Note 20 in August there will be more details about this upcoming gaming feature.